Do You See What Eye See
by LusciousNesha
Summary: Sam Evans, reformed white supremacist turned overnight celebrity, when a version of his story to escape the life of a Neo-Nazi becomes popularized through a book, and his wife to be, Mercedes Jones, a black, blind business woman have the love that they always wanted. But sometimes, love makes everything harder. The world can be a cold place to live, even in the bright spotlight.
1. The Revenue

_Hello again, dear friends, readers and reviewers. It took me a moment to figure out where I wanted to begin the sequel, but I finally came to a decision and I hope that you like it._

_The first story, As Far As Eye Can See grew into something that I never imagined when I first began writing it, and due to the fact that racism is based upon looks more than any of the other "reasons" a racist may give and the fact that one of the main characters does not have eyesight, I used the word "Eye", instead of "I" in the title, as a play on words and a metaphor for some content within it. _

_I decided to do that again with this story: Do You See What Eye See, and I hope that we all can enjoy this journey together as we look at our couple, yet again, this time, with the eyes of the public on them._

**The Revenue**

While it had been a painful and hard decision to make, ultimately, Mercedes Jones felt slightly relieved after moving out of her apartment on the top floor of Pieces of Mercy, her antiques and gift shop. The apartment became a storage area and the area downstairs became a place for additional parking. The store became quite a popular place in Lima after the rising success of her fiance's biography, the movie adaptation, which would be released in a few months, and a spin off regular series currently in production, but not yet airing. Many times, people simply wanted to come into the building that was spoken of so much during interviews and would be the place that the show's main location was modeled after.

The shop sold the books and sometimes, people simply wanted to take a picture of or with Sam Evans, the real life survivor and one of America's newest favorite protagonists in a story. Which was why moving out of the place was a wonderful change of pace. Sam now had his own money and resources. The first thing that he did when he received his first payment was to write a check to pay back everything that Mercedes had ever helped him out with, including the things that she did for his family, when they were in need. Now, it was his turn to make sure that she was provided for. Sam was able to collect enough money to buy a house for them, with plenty of room for his father, Dwight and sister, Stacie, and the five dogs that they had. Mercedes' seeing-eye dog, Kissy Kissy Bang Bang and her guard dog Clusterfrak, plus his brother Stevie's guard dogs – Bruiser, Crusher, and Smasher.

His publicist, Missy Gunderson seemed to be at his side at all times, which annoyed Mercedes (and Sam a lot of the time), but they allowed it, since it was her doing that Sam was able to finally move towards building a real life for himself, outside of his dreaded past, without feeling like a charity case. Missy was constantly reminding him of certain things and telling him what would be a good thing to say, or as was usually the case – telling him not to say exactly what he was thinking about something. It sometimes amazed him how much politics went into something that should have been as simple as him going out into the world and telling them about his experiences… but Missy insisted that not all things should be shared and that the things that should be shared should be presented in a certain way. It made his head hurt, at times.

Sam spent many nights away from his love and it stressed him out, because it was easier for him to sleep with her with him, and because he had a high level of paranoia over her safety. He believed that things had become much better after the men directly responsible for his young entry into the world of white supremacy had been put into prison, but he always worried that some trickle somewhere might fall on them and that something might happen to her. She really was too good to be true, and he didn't know what he would do if he ever lost her. Mercedes Jones was the beautiful woman and kind soul who took him in, gave him another chance at life when he had not many options. She was gracious towards him, never judged him for his past and ultimately, they fell in love and had to endure hell together, along with their friends.

Now, more than a year after the trial that put Will Schuester in prison and showed the world the brave young man that Sam had become, she was his fiancé and their future looked bright.

Mercedes left out of their home, relishing in the smell of the flowers that Stacie had growing outside as she and the dogs made their trek to the gift shop. That was one significant difference about the new house – it wasn't too close to the shop and she generally had to leave pretty early to get there "on time." She had a wonderful staff that always greeted her with love and she remained highly involved in all of the business dealings, even though she truly did not have to be.

Her store manager, Santana Lopez handled most of the details for her, but was certain to always let her know about decisions. Her purchaser, and assistant manager Lauren Zizes was terribly efficient at the job that Santana used to have and Santana didn't miss it, at all. Then, there was her personal assistant, Stacie Evans, her future sister-in-law, who loved her work so much. She basically got to hang out with her favorite lady when she didn't have classes, read her mail, email, etc, reply accordingly and taxi her around.

Others working at Pieces of Mercy also included the sales specialist, Becky Jackson, who handled special orders, custom gifts and kept up with the high end merchandise upstairs. Brittany S. Pierce worked as a sales floor representative… She basically made sure that in stock items were displayed, set up displays and greeted and helped customers to find what they might need. And the cashiers were a spunky blond woman, trying to get on her feet after a series of bad decisions, named April Rhodes (Mercy sort of had a soft spot for special cases), one of Mercedes' old friends/her old roommate from the institution, Dottie Westerston, and a really nice but sassy and sweet transvestite named Unique.

These ladies worked well together, unlike a lot of places with a lot of cattiness going on… (Because Santana fired catty folks. A few hadn't made it for their messy bull.) Plus, Mercedes historically only hired friends and those in need passing through, so if someone new was going to come in, they had better come in ready to be a part of the team. Tana had no time for fake people. Brittany had made a display on the wall of the POM Girls, and had photos of each member of staff, with their job title beneath it. She decorated the wall in pink and glitter and unicorns. Santana loved her and let her get away with it, but she was really glad that Mercedes couldn't see that mess.

Mercedes liked to walk to work. It made up for the fact that she no longer had daily jogging dates with her best friend, Quinn Fabray. A lot had happened between Quinn and the others during the ordeal, and while it was all forgiven now; Quinn had a very rewarding job that she was excellent at – bossing people around in an intelligent manner and basically telling them how they ought to run their businesses, so she didn't have a reason to return as the store manager of POM. She loved it and it fit her well, as well as gave her a healthy alternative to being the control freak that her friends had always reminded her that she was. Yet, Quinn always made time to pick up Mercedes for lunch and meet with their other best friend, Tina Cohen-Chang, whose wedding the three were currently planning.

"I think that is an awful idea, Tina," Quinn commented, about something in regards to the planning.

"You think that all of the ideas that you didn't come up with are awful," Tina retorted, giving her an annoyed look. Quinn nodded, in agreement, with a proud face.

Mercedes simply snickered. "This is exactly why I'm not letting Quinn anywhere near the planning of my wedding," she told them.

Quinn scoffed and said, "I wouldn't even want to be involved in that!" But when she saw the frown on Mercedes' face, reached over to stroke her hand, "You know I love you and Sam is the guy for you, but I seriously do not appreciate the representation of us from what I've seen of the movie. I thought that he and I were better than that, now."

"You did attempt to let him be killed," Tina reminded her.

"Yes, but it was never malicious. I never was like that bleached blond portrayal that is now gracing the covers of magazines for the anticipation of her playing me, and she's signed on to play me in the series, as well. I wonder what they'll do in the show, since it's obvious that in the movie, I am going to be nothing but the traitor bitch. And yes, I was a traitor bitch, but it was circumstantial and I was desperate. Did you see the clip of the conversation that I supposedly had with my father about Sam? The dialogue actually has my character saying, 'I don't care what it takes, I want that bastard gone.' I _never _said anything like that about him. I had to be coaxed into agreeing."

Tina shrugged her shoulders and said, "That's something you'll just have to deal with for even becoming traitor bitch, in the first place. And that Kitty woman is a very good actress. This is her first big break, but I think that she'll be great – even if her character doesn't reach beyond that of traitor bitch."

"And what about you - unnecessarily angry woman of color?" Quinn asked. "It's like all your character seems to do from what I've seen is attack Sam at every turn and tell Mercedes why she shouldn't be with him. I don't know, maybe I missed something, but I seem to remember you warning her about him once in the beginning, then not bothering with that issue again, because you had said your peace!"

"The difference is that I don't care how they've portrayed me. You act like movies that are inspired by true events are true stories. They aren't. They take the basic model of the story and fill it in with whatever they find entertaining." Tina shrugged her shoulders and said, "I'm not even going to watch that movie."

Mercedes spoke up now and asked, "You aren't? But, what about the premiere in Los Angeles? You aren't coming?"

"Yes… and after I've had the chance to meet some stars and get some autographs, I'm ducking the hell out. I've already lived that shit. I don't need to see a movie that's going to cause me to relive it."

"I doubt that you'll have that problem, because the movie is not about what we went through. The movie is about Sam and how he's some majestic goddamned hero who saved all of us from our shit existence when he did everything in the world to get the big bad wolf off of our doorsteps. I shiver to think of how Matt might be portrayed," Quinn complained.

"Matt isn't even in the movie," Mercedes said.

Now, Tina asked, "WHAT?"

"There was this huge legal battle between his lawyers and the production company about misrepresentation, since Matt's now a public figure. The studio had to pull the Matt character out and replace him with another black antagonist."

"Why is he an antagonist in the first place, though?" Tina asked. "Hell, why can't it be like the book?"

"Matt _is_ the antagonist in the book," Quinn said. "Didn't you read it?"

"NO!" Tina said, "I already lived that shit. I don't need to read a book that's going to cause me to relive it, but Sam helped to write the book, so I presumed that Matt's nature would be accurately accounted for in it."

Quinn said, "Basically, Sam has been given a lot of money to make the rest of us look like we aren't worth a damn and he's perfectly reformed and never ever wrong."

Mercedes defended, "That's not what he did. Yeah, the book comes across that way in certain places, but that was all Missy's doing. They have an image that they want to present of Sam, as a reformed man." Quinn and Tina both gave each other frowning looks and Mercedes could practically feel the side eye from the two of them. "It isn't his fault. He doesn't have the control over all of it that you guys seem to think."

"I think that he could have come across still as a good guy, if they even let him keep the flaws that Sam Evans actually has – like a horrible temper, a jealous heart, and unrealistic hopes and dreams," Quinn criticized. "I mean, I think that it would have been good for the audience to experience that he did slip out some racist comments a few times, some unaware, at least one slur that he intended to hurt Puck with. I mean – they never tell you that when he first came around that he called Kurt the F word. They never tell you that he asked Sunshine what she was and didn't even know where the Philippines were. They never tell you that he himself has admitted that he is afraid that he might slip up and say something that might hurt Mercy, because of his past programming."

"I'm with Tina, on the whole it's not exactly real life thing. Expect fantasy in any movie, even ones based on true stories," Mercedes said.

"I don't know, Cedes… I'm kind of leaning towards agreeing with Q, now that she's explained it. Goodness. So, how is Mercedes portrayed?" Tina now wondered.

Quinn laughed and shook her head, "As a catalyst for Sam and not even an individual identity. It's like her main purpose in life is to tell everyone that Sam has changed and to love him no matter what while he's been the sacrificial hero that nobody else understands or cares about."

"God, Quinn, enough! You hate the book and you'll hate the movie. We get it. Can we all move on? I thought this was a wedding planning lunch," Mercedes complained.

Things had been that way for a few months, now. After the release of the book, many of their friends got upset or felt cheated in how they were depicted, if they were depicted, at all.

Shane's appearance included him beating Sam senseless, being face to face to talk to him and telling him that he could not forgive him… None of his future endeavors at making peace, none of his assistance in the efforts against the enemy, nothing else worthy was mentioned, not even the fact that he helped to take care of Sam's sister, out of the goodness of his heart. Joe's character had not even been spoken of. Missy insisted that Joe's character would take away from the Sam character and when Sam was irate about the fact that Joe had not been included, she told him, "Anything that you want to add into your story, you'll be able to include in a few years when you release your _autobiography. _This book is a biography. That means that it isn't written from your viewpoint, but from the author's and the author sees _you_ as a true hero."

The book left no room for Artie or Becky, except for mentioning that Sam would be sweet to them when they were around, blah, blah… The friendship that Sam had with Lauren somehow became her being in love with him from afar and never telling him. The friendship that he had with Tina was reduced to him working with her for the greater good and her feeling obligated to work along with him. But what really pissed Sam off, as far as characterization was concerned was his portrayal of his family… They were all depicted as victims. Every. Last. One… Including Mary. Her "rape" was never issued as a lie and her death was seen as heroic and loving, and was spun to be a central portion of Sam making sure that he took down the enemy.

Mercedes spent many nights trying to soothe him over for his displeasure with how the book had treated their friends. Sam felt guilty and insecure. He thought that they would blame him for it. They were upset at first, but Mercedes explained it to them exactly how Missy had explained it and made sure to emphasize that Sam had no control over it. Tina couldn't care less, because she was not into that fandom, anyway. Joe was very understanding about it, but the others had some issues with getting over it, even if they weren't mad at Sam.

Kurt told her, "It's just that everyone was a hero in their own rite. Everyone certainly went through terrible nights and had to come out stronger. It's a tragedy to downplay anyone's involvement and a greater wrong to play up someone else's. Sam is a hero. We all know it, but we all know that he didn't do what he did alone."

Stacie finished up some homework in the cash office, at the desk while she waited on Quinn to come back with Mercedes. They were going to be going by the community center that Shane owned to spend time with the children and she could hardly wait! Her favorite part of the week was going to the community center. When she heard Mercedes, Quinn and Tina's voices laughing and talking about how soon they needed to get together for late night crème brulee cheesecake bars and vanilla cream lattes, she practically came running out of the backroom.

For one thing, she wanted to make sure that she hugged Tina and made plans to get with her on the flowers for her wedding. They were going to go to a fancy botanical garden, for Tina to make her selections; then Stacie was going to challenge herself to grow whatever the bride wanted, which was cheaper than ordering them, and to Stacie – much more fun. For another thing, she was ready to hightail it to the center.

Stacie hugged Tina and they began to talk, and Mercedes was in the conversation as well. Quinn pretty much shied away, as she generally did when Stacie came into the picture. The young lady did not like her, before, and after the release of the book, Stacie had become noticeably adverse to the older woman. The book did nothing to convince her otherwise and she would probably never be able to look at her without seeing the woman that could have and would have had her brother killed. She prayed about forgiveness every single day… but she knew that it could take a while… a long while… she glanced at Quinn and forced a smile, "Hello, Miss. Fabray," she said.

Quinn was the only person in Mercedes' life that she addressed that way. She even called April, a woman old enough to be her mother, April (because April insisted), but Quinn was always Ms. Fabray. "Hi, Stacie. How's college going?"

"It's good. Tina's got me in a similar practice as the one that you had when you worked here full time and also worked on getting your business degree."

"And you're majoring in plant sciences, correct?" Quinn asked, their conversation stilted and obviously tense.

"Mmhmm. I've always loved plants, picking flowers, climbing trees, laying in the grass, and I do a lot of gardening, but with this major, I can do a lot of good in the world. Everything is becoming so technological and synthetic. Hopefully, we'll be able to preserve the plant life that we now have, as well as produce more healthy and nutritious food, enough to help feed the hungry and just… a lot of other great things that we can do – trying to make sterile environments able to sustain plant life for expanded growth and investigating new methods of fighting diseases. God has given us a cure for or help with everything in plants, I think. I think that we just have to find them."

"Sounds like noble work," Quinn said and glanced at her phone for the time. "I have to get back to the office. I have a couple of appointments this afternoon," she told Tina and Mercedes before hugging and kissing them each goodbye and Tina left shortly after her.

"Is it time to go to the community center, yet?" Stacie wondered.

"Yes, it is. Just let me get the dogs," Mercedes said.

They arrived at the center while Joe was seated in front of the children, playing his guitar and singing, "All my life, I have been called unworthy. Named by the voice of my shame and regret. But when I hear you whisper, 'child lift up your head,' I remember oh God, you're not done with me yet. I am redeemed. You set me free. So I'll shake off these heavy chains. Wipe away every stain. Now I'm not who I used to be. I am redeemed. I'm redeemed…" She leaned against the wall and rocked with her eyes closed, just enjoying his voice. She couldn't tell you that the song was called Redeemed by someone called Big Daddy Weave. All that she knew was how much she loved to hear Joe sing, especially within his element – Christian songs.

Her eyes opened and she stared at him, strumming the instrument and singing with such passion that she thought she might cry. His voice was so beautiful. Shoot, _he _was beautiful. Funny enough, only Tina and Santana knew the real truth – Stacie had become noticeably adverse to Quinn when she found out that Quinn and Joe used to sort of have a thing. And _that _came about after Joe overheard her make a comment about Quinn to Sam and Joe, in all his wonderful, judge not glory, tried to speak up for the woman and explain to Stacie that Quinn was simply misunderstood and had needed professional help when she did what she did to Sam.

Stacie didn't understand why such a sweet person would have wasted his time on someone like Quinn, who she was still convinced was probably rotten to the core. But, she didn't want to think about that, right now. It was only right to simply focus in and listen when Joe was blessing someone with song. He ended it with a soft, "Thank you," and the children clapped for him.

Joe smiled at Stacie and Mercedes and announced to the children, "And now, the moment that you've all been waiting for…" The children turned around and saw Mercedes and rushed to tackle her with hugs and kisses. Stacie moved aside and allowed them to take her sister as Joe got up from his chair and placed his guitar strap around himself. He walked over to her and greeted her with a hug, "Hello, Stace-Face." The two of them had gotten used to each other during the process of Sam helping his father to rebuild their family. Joe would come over once a week to join in a prayer circle with them, and he was something like Sam's spiritual advisor, even though Sam was a little older than him.

"Hey, Joe-Yo," she said and tried not to look too starry eyed as she looked up at him. "Great song and beautifully performed, as usual."

"Thank you. I credit God for the gift of music and I'm that he uses me for the purpose of spreading his message through it."

"Amen," she said and nodded. "Is Artie around?"

"He's out with Shane getting some things for the winter festival dance. It's going to be a sock hop."

"Well, you should feel right at home, because you're always going barefoot," she commented.

"Yeah," he said with a smile and wiggled his toes. "Straight up barefoot, though. I don't do that silly sock business." Stacie laughed a little, then a child ran right into her and attacked her with a huge hug. "Hey you!" She said to the kid, picked her up, threw her over her shoulder and began to tickle her. Joe smiled at this, then left the ladies to entertain the children in whatever way they would see fit as he headed towards his office. He didn't notice Stacie trying to pretend to walk away. He never really noticed that.

Sam sighed and tried not to fall asleep as Missy continuously complained about some questions that one of the audience members of a talk show was asking Sam. "I know that Matt Rutherford is responsible for that line of questioning! I know that you and he have an understanding with each other. You need to tell him to back off!" She complained.

"If you ever listened to anything that I've ever said, you would know that Matt doesn't back off. If he believes in something, he's willing to fight. It's one of his most admirable traits – you know – those admirable traits that were completely left out of his character in the book?"

"Well, he certainly seems to be acting just like he does in the book!" She whined.

"I'm still confused as to why you think that every critic was sent by Matt," Sam said, strumming his fingers across the cover of his now filled up journal that he still brought everywhere with him. He had another for journaling, but he still never went a step without the first one.

"He has been criticizing the book since the release," she said. "Even if he didn't send people, it's definitely his influence that has them second guessing. He picked the book apart like he was going to teach a college course on discrepancies or something!"

"Think maybe the book shouldn't have enough discrepancies for that kind of dissection?" Sam asked.

"I think that people need to just suck it up and resign themselves to the fact that YOU are the interesting one. You are the one that America loves. You are the face that people want to see. They all want to hug you. They empathize with you. They feel you. The others need to simply admit that they aren't as marketable or popular."

"When we first began this thing, you told me that you wanted the world to know my story… but you've just made up the story…"

"I didn't make up anything," she corrected him. "The book was written from the perspective of an author that admires you and it highlights your qualities without focusing on your limited shortcomings. But, it doesn't lie. Now, the movie is something else, because we gave up the story to creative freedom, but we did advise them and they are not allowed to sully you for shock value. You are a treasure among other mere common coins… Maybe _you _should resign yourself to that."

"All that I'm resigning myself to is making sure I have all of my notes squared away for writing my autobiography. I still believe that the world should hear the real story. Nothing sugarcoated or exaggerated for my name's sake."

"See? That's another example of how noble you are," she said and rubbed his leg, gently. "People will love you even more when that happens."

"Only people I care about loving me are my family, friends and future wife," he said. Missy lifted an eyebrow and nodded her head, then looked out of the window.

"And they do," she told him. "But America loves you too, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep it that way. It's my job and my pleasure."


	2. The Reservations

_I would just like to thank everyone who came back with me to give this thing a chance. I know that so many times, sequels fall so short of the original and I am hoping that this is not the case in our situation here._

_There are a lot of new characters, but I don't intend for the old dynamic of the gang to be ruined, though the Samcedes dynamic is under a bit of distress. Sorry about how bleak thing may look. I guess my ongoing current depression is affecting my work, though I did intend to have this drama played out before I got depressed…_

**The Reservations**

It was going to be a long day. Mercedes was not that fond of going to all of the various events that Missy dragged him to. She wanted to be there for him and to be by his side, but too frequently did people steal him away and sort of leave her standing there, in an unfamiliar place without a guide. It had been alright for her, for a time. She would find a post and simply wait on him to return to her, entertaining miscellaneous questions, while she waited.

But then, there had been a couple of times where she had to go to the bathroom, and she didn't know where he was to escort her, so she ended up having to try to find someone willing to take her there. That was embarrassing, at times, but it wasn't the first time. There had been moments when Sam had to ask a woman to bring her into the women's room at certain places, and to help her find the stall and the sinks. However, Mercedes gave up on those trips when she needed to find a bathroom escort and did so, only to find that she had begun her cycle, as well.

_ That _was embarrassing. She had actually managed to get the attention of Kitty Tobin, the actress who played Quinn in _The R Word. _The woman was very helpful and extremely nice, to not only escort her to the bathroom, but to the stall and the sink and when Mercedes went to wash her hands, Kitty said, "Erm… Miss Babydoll… You have blood on your hand." Mercedes froze. She _thought _that she might be on her cycle. She was near the time and she did have panty liners on, because she was certain to always have them on when her time was approaching; but she didn't know this woman in such a way that this would be a comfortable exchange.

"Thank you for telling me. If you'll wait on me for just a second longer, I'll go back into the stall and rectify a few things."

"Of course, I'll wait," Kitty told her and asked, "Do you need me to help you with anything in there, or…?"

"Oh, no!" Mercedes laughed awkwardly and said, "I know where everything is and I have my supplies. I may need you to examine my clothes when I come out to make sure there's nothing amiss."

"I certainly will, Ma'am!" Kitty said. Mercedes went back into the stall and Kitty wrung her hands and bit her lip. God, this was embarrassing. She couldn't even begin to imagine how Babydoll was probably feeling. It never occurred to her before that blind women had cycles. Of course, she knew that they did, that they must, but she didn't realize until that moment how that might be a real struggle for them. She began to hum to herself and check her reflection in the mirror. "Um… so, what about that Missy Gunderson, eh? She is such a ball buster. I feel so sorry for Sam, most of the time. His publicist is a shark, but at least she cares about her clients."

"Oh, Missy is an okay person," Mercedes called out; as she used her wipes to try to make sure she cleaned everything up. "She's simply young and ambitious and Sam's actually her first big client. She discovered him. She went after him and she made him what he is. She's got a lot invested in his career and his image."

"L.O.L. at her discovering him – like Columbus discovered America," Kitty said, with a chuckle. Mercedes simply bit her lip and didn't respond as she made sure that she correctly covered herself. "And as far as his career – I thought that he wanted to make comics or cartoons or something."

"Well, he's an artist, but he's also a writer. She's going to help him be able to write books. He's been working on a few of them and with the type of publicity that she has gotten him, he could be a huge success in that," Mercedes said and came out of the stall, "I forgot to ask, can you check the stall to see if I left any traces of anything?" Kitty checked and wiped off a couple of spots of blood before tossing the tissue and flushing, then helped Mercedes back to the sink where they both washed their hands. "Thank you, so much. I know that this must be embarrassing for you…"

"No. Well, yes, a little – but I realize that it's even worse for you. Why don't you have a personal assistant for things like this? I know that you can afford one."

"I have a personal assistant, but…" she tilted her head. It _would've _been far less stressful if she had Stacie with her. "She's a college student."

"A cousin or something? Look – I'm just saying that if you'll be on the road with Sam for all of the projects that Slave driver Missy has set up for him, it would behoove the two of you to have an official, always available personal assistant to do these things for you. You can have your cousin do the at home stuff, then have a special assistant while you're on the road." Mercedes nodded. That was a pretty good idea. As she and Kitty reentered the party, arm in arm, she heard that voice that she adored call out to her.

"Babydoll! I was wondering where you'd run off to!" He cheered. He had laughter and relief in his voice. She could tell that he was worried.

"I stole one of the cast members for usage of personal assistant services," she confessed and rubbed Kitty's arm, gratefully. Kitty kissed her on the cheek and made her way back into the crowd. "I don't think I can take this traveling, anymore," Mercedes said. She hadn't been on the road much, since then.

When she heard Sam's ringtone, Mercedes smiled and answered her phone. She was on sitter duty at Emma's watching the dogs and babies… and Emma. "If it isn't Mr. Amazing!" She said.

"Then No One by Alicia Keys better not have played," he said, with a chuckle. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Helping Emma babysit," she answered. "Shannon is supposed to stop by to drop some things off for us. Tina's with Mike at the community center, getting things ready for National Fire Prevention Week. It's gonna be EPIC this year. Cheerio was able to get her cheerleading squad involved. My church, of course is participating. Mike is gonna get some kind of award for his continuous volunteer firefighter services."

"Sounds awesome, and when is it?"

"Next week, so you'll be back in time."

"Yeah, definitely," Sam said. "So, how are the kiddos?"

"Quiet, right now," she said. "I have them in the playpen, since Emma and I are the only adults here. I expect that Babs will grow restless, soon, but Cowboy is a trooper. He hardly ever makes a fuss. Stacie and I are taking Cheerio to get him a Halloween costume this weekend."

"Anything in particular that she wanna dress him up as?" Sam wondered.

"Well… Since he has the cowboy theme nursery and his nickname is Cowboy…" Mercedes started, then felt Emma shifting on the couch, "Emma – you going somewhere?"

"Just gonna wait out on the front patio for Shannon," Emma answered.

"Alright. Would you let the dogs out, also? They haven't been outside for a while," Mercedes said.

"Yes. They appear to be following me out, anyway," she said.

"I wonder how long it's gonna take us to give Cowboy a lil' cousin," Sam said.

Mercedes laughed and said, "Again with that, Sam? We aren't even married, yet," she said.

"I hate that you keep reminding me about that, like there's anything that I can do to change it," he pouted.

"Well, there are just so many other things that we need to take care of first. I mean, you have all these interviews and meetings lined up for the next couple of months. After the release of the movie in December, when you take your break from the spotlight, you'll have to have those long, strenuous procedures that we've discussed with the doctors. It would be so irresponsible of us to start trying to have children, right now."

"Will it also be irresponsible for us to get married right now, because that's sort of what the conversation was about, before you changed it… again," Sam complained.

"Yes, I think that it would be. Sam, it's not like I don't want to marry you, there's just so much going on in your life right now and I don't want to distract you from building your career. I have my dream career. I love what I do. You are still launching yours, and I'm going to support you through it all."

"Just not as my wife," he said, irritated. "I mean, am I the only one who thinks that it's bad enough that you're hardly ever on the road with me and when we are together, we've stopped having sex, but damn – I seriously cannot fathom why it is so hard for you to just go ahead and marry me, if you love me as much as you say you do."

"As much as I say I do? I think that our history together is enough to validate my love!" She said, with a shaky voice. He sighed and she bit her lip and took a deep breath, "Why are we arguing, again?" She asked.

"Because I fucking miss you and I don't have you here to hold… so, I'm being a little bit testy and picking fights. I'm sorry. I love you. I just want you to be my wife. I don't want to be like Kurt and Blaine and wait ten years, or like Tina and Mike and wait five. I wouldn't have waited this long, to be honest. I've wanted to marry you for what feels like forever. In another year or two, I have no idea what it'll feel like, especially since we have stopped having sex," Sam explained.

Mercedes sighed. Hell – the sex thing wasn't _her _fault. This was an issue. They had plenty of them, but the sex thing was one of the greatest ones, for the moment. It started with them being on an interview together and an audience member asked a question related to sex. "Its public knowledge that both of you are devout Christians, what type of advice would you give to young Christians on how to abstain until marriage?"

What Sam _should have said_ was: I'm the wrong person to ask, because I have an active sex life.

What Sam _did say_ was: Abstaining can be very difficult and sometimes feel impossible, but as Christians, we're called upon by God to do certain things. It isn't easy, but if He commanded it, it's not impossible, either."

Since then, they had decided to settle down on having sex. He didn't want to be a hypocrite and to be honest; she had always had a nagging conscious about their sex life, anyway. But, now that they were in the public eye, so much of what they did was under a microscope. Sam had rededicated his life to Christ (in truth, this time, according to him), and they had not been together sexually in about three months. Add that to the fact that she no longer traveled with him (which made their abstinence easier, if you asked her), and then count in that Missy spent so much time trying to make him look a certain way… sometimes, it was overwhelming to think about and she wondered where exactly she and Sam stood.

He loved her, obviously, practically begging her to become his wife, as soon as possible… But after his rise to fame, her self-esteem decreased in silence. She remembered Shane, and how he had left her behind. She remembered Artie and how he had left her behind. She remembered Puck, and any time that she did, she would feel deep sorrow. Sam was more important to her than ALL OF THEM, combined. She knew that many of his fans thought that he could do better, and no matter how much she loved him and trusted him, some part of her whispered, so many nights that someday, probably someday soon… he would think the same. That thought bothered her so much, that she was afraid to keep him so close during all of this.

Something told her that it might be counterproductive, but she just thought that when he decided that she was not the woman for this new, famous, loved Sam Evans… she didn't want to be a happily married mother. She didn't want to have him stay around, just because of a child, or leave her after she had dedicated her entire life and future to him. It was an unreasonable fear! But, she simply could not shake it, and Missy never made it any better. She frequently spoke about all of the young ladies who would probably try to marry Sam, if she wasn't around and comment on all of the celebrities who allegedly had a celebrity crush on him. Mercedes shuddered, as she ran these things through her mind. "Babydoll… what are you thinking?"

"Thinking about how I don't wanna lose you," she said, softly.

"You might as well through that thought out the window. You aren't ever losing me, Mercy. I love you too much to ever let you go. I don't _want _to wait to get married, but I sure can't force you, so I'll have to wait, if I want you – which I do. And even though we've stopped having sex, I once went for about seven years without any, so I know that I can and I'm willing to wait for you. I just… Sometimes it feels like you're putting this distance between us and I don't understand why. It hurts me." She heard Rachel's small toddler, Babs begin to whine and she got up from the couch to see to her. "That Babsie?"

"Yep, she's finally decided that she's had enough of being out of the spotlight," Mercedes chuckled, sadly – still mulling over how sad Sam sounded, himself. She couldn't stand doing that to him, but she couldn't seem to help it, either. And, Emma's permanent brain damage didn't stop her from being a great listener, but she was not particularly good at feedback, anymore.

She knew that she could talk to her friends about her issues, but Tina had so much to do with her wedding planning and overall being a kickass partner to Mike. Kurt was still a newlywed. Rachel was still getting used to try to settle into a life with Finn not being in the military. Quinn was… Quinn. She worried about ever speaking about any possible problems with Quinn, for obvious reasons. "I guess that I'll have to see if Babs and Cowboy need to eat and stuff… I wish that I was able to multitask and keep talking to you, but Rach and Cheri entrusted their kids to me."

"I understand. You go ahead. Give my nephew a huge kiss for me and tickle the heck out of Babsie, on my behalf," he said.

"I shall endeavor to make you proud, with my performance, Mr. Amazing!" She cheered as she collected the girl from the playpen. "But first, I must make sure that there is neither pee nor poo on either of them," she said, feeling Babs touch her all over her face. Babs sometimes did that to her, because she did it to Babs, to know her face and well, the kid figured that this must be something to do with this woman.

"Okay, Baby. I love you… and I miss you, _so _much," he said.

"I love you and I miss you to, Sam," she said, softly. She felt like he didn't just mean this particular trip. He missed the feel of her body. He missed the confidence that she once had in what they had. He missed the assurance that she fully truly and honestly believed in his love for her.

"I would never leave you," he said. Of course, even though they had not discussed it, he figured out what was wrong with her.

"I would never leave you," she said. Babs began to practically scream, sick and tired of not being paid proper attention. "Oh my God! Barbra, cut it out!" Mercedes said, then she and Sam wrapped up their talk and she hung up and saw to the children.

Sam sighed and hung up his phone, as well. He was with the new assistant that Missy had gotten him. He demanded that he have one (mostly to keep up with all the stuff that Missy tried to tell him. She drove him CRAZY!) But, he also wanted an assistant, because he would ask Mercy to complete the rest of his meetings with him. Things were becoming a bit tense in the public eye, due to her absence. Even though it made perfectly good sense for a blind woman to not travel behind him everywhere, people were beginning to question the condition of their relationship and he knew that if they were spotted together, that the tenseness between them would be captured if they didn't act soon and fix whatever the hell it was that was going on between them. She still loved him and he knew that she was still his biggest fan, supporter, cheerleader and believer… But he needed her beside him to reassure him that there was not some wedge between them.

"Mr. Evans," Marley Rose, the bright young assistant began.

"Sam," he corrected her.

"Sam," she corrected herself with a smile, "Miss Gunderson gave me your itinerary and told me that as soon as you got off of the phone with your fiancée to go over it with you."

"You can just set it down. I know how to read. Now, when you're with Babydoll, you'll have to read out stuff," he said, with a broad smile and opened his current journal.

"In the short period of time that I've been with you, I've heard so much about her. I can't wait to meet her. She seems like such an amazing person." Marley said and sat down at the table, across from him.

"Oh, she is!" Sam said. "She's like an angel. She's beautiful and kind. She's got these adorable habits and she's totally smart. She'll talk about the Bible like it's nothing and everything, at the same time. She's read like – pretty much every classic that there is. She knows, and I kid you not, like EVERY song that you can imagine. It's almost like one of those autistic people, how well she knows songs. She knows all the words, the song title, the artist and many of them, she can tell you what year they came out. You'll love her, Marley. The two of you are gonna hit it off so well," he said, smiling the entire time. She smiled brightly back at him and twiddled with her fingers. He saw it and raised an eyebrow, "You want to read me that itinerary, don't you?" He asked.

"Miss Gunderson said that if I don't read it to you and you don't get around to reading it yourself that she would hold me personally responsible," she said and nervously bit her lip.

"Well, even if you read it, I may lose my attention span, but you're free to go ahead," he told her.

"Thank you, I appreciate that," she said and began to carry out her assignment. Meanwhile, Sam worked on a sketch of Mercedes. When he was on the road, he didn't often feel like writing, but he did a lot of sketching and most of them were of his love. Some of them were of random things that popped in his head, or silly dreams that he had that he made into mini comic strips – like that one of his parole officer, Sue Sylvester in a duel with Sue Snell… he had no idea what prompted that dream. He hadn't watched Carrie since before he was locked up. And even when he had, he had only watched it a couple of times. Now, The Shining! That was a movie that he could watch over and over… He heard Marley clear her throat and he looked up. "You didn't hear a single word of that, did you?"

"I'm sorry. But, you did your part and I _promise _that I can and will read it myself, later. You can head to your own room, and everything. If she send you back here, for any reason, please, just call me. A lot of the stuff that she insists needs to be told to me in person, I can promise you, you can tell me over the phone."

"Yes, Mr… Sam," she said. "I will go to my own room and I'll see you in the morning," she said.

"Goodnight, Marley," he said and gave her a crooked smile. Marley took a deep breath and nodded. It was hard not to see him as a handsome man, because he was. It was difficult not to have a crush on him, because he was so very sweet and considerate… but he belonged to someone and from what she had been told, not only did his woman deserve him, but they were madly in love. She shyly left the room and made her way to her room, with Missy watching from down the hallway. Missy checked her watch, then retired into her own room.

Rachel buckled the kids into their baby seats in her SUV and secured the dogs into their totes in the back. "It feels like all of us should have family vehicles, these days," she said as she helped Mercedes to step into the passenger's seat.

"Not me," Mercedes said, sadly. God, this thing with the way that she felt about/was treating Sam was bringing her down.

"Well, you haven't started yet, but you will soon. Let's see…" Rachel walked over to her side and got into the driver's seat, "If things go according to plan, or the rough draft of the plan, I guess – you and Sam will be married by the end of next year, and probably begin having children in the months to follow," Rachel said.

"If we last that long," Mercedes said.

"And why on Earth would you not last that long? You two made it through all of the events in Hatemonger: The Sam Evans Story," Rachel said.

"Well, more or less. It didn't happen _exactly _like that," Mercedes said.

"Regardless. From what Kurt has told me, it was bad enough. If the two of you made it through that, you could make it through anything," Rachel assured her.

"Things were different then. Sam was different. He didn't realize his worth. He didn't know that he could be accepted and loved to the extent that he is now. He had no friends but me and the friends that I introduced him to and things were shaky with his family. I'm not suggesting that Sam is going to leave me, but I don't want to rule it out, either. I feel like I have to see if he can really handle having all of this fame and admiration before I go running down the aisle to become Mrs. Sam Evans."

Rachel widened her eyes and said, "I had no idea that you were worried about these things. It's understandable, with your past and Sam will simply have to understand that this is how you feel and that you can't change it. But, Mercedes – let me warn you of something… It isn't a good idea to judge a man on what you're worried that he might or might not do when all the things that he has done contradict it." She began driving and said, "Sam seems like he loves you and I would love to promise you that you have nothing to worry about, but at the same time, nothing is really for certain, is it?"

"I certainly love him more than anything and I never want to hurt him or lose him," Mercedes said.

"Then, let me tell you what you have to do… trust him. If you love him that much, don't let your worry get in the way. Treat it like you do your relationship with God," Rachel suggested. "You once told me that for you, marriage was like Jesus and church, or something like that… Let him be your Jesus and you be his church. Because, I don't think it matters how successful or famous he's become or will become, he'll have the very same Samuel Evans demons that he has had, for a while and no matter how gorgeous, thin or pale some of the women out there may be… Sam knows that there is only one sanctuary where he is free from his demons. Don't tear it down, Mercedes."

Mercedes listened to Rachel's word and leaned over to give her a tight hug. It was SO GOOD to have her back in town. She always made things better. "You're right. Sam is the man that I chose and I shouldn't let my fears mess this up. He deserves better than that. He deserves my all, whether I'm afraid, or not."

"And you deserve to love and be loved without scaring yourself away from it," Rachel added. "Is Stefan coming with you, or…"

"Yes. You can just drop us off at the shop," Mercedes said. Only a few more days, and she would be reunited with Sam, and she didn't care how hard it would be, she would fight off all these wretched fears and let herself love him the way that she always had, so she wouldn't have to feel so bad about the distance that she was creating… and she had to close that distance, as well. She pulled out her phone to call him back. "Hey… you were right, earlier, when you said that I was putting distance between us. I have been and that's not fair to you. So, I promise that I'll be more mindful of it, so that I can stop doing it. What I'm putting you through is killing me."

"Aww, Babydoll… it's killing me too. Listen – I was gonna save it as a surprise, but you got an assistant… so that you can come on the road with me again. I need you with me. Missy found a wonderful personal assistant and she's got open availability. It's only a few more months; then I'll have a rest period to start on my procedures and to work on my books. I know that you've been kinda freaked out since that whole bathroom thing with Kitty, but… I really need you," he said, trying hard not to beg too much.

"Okay. "Then, I'll be with you. If you need me there with you, where else would I need to be? But what is Stacie going to do while I'm gone?" She asked.

"She'll get a vacation and help Daddy and Cheerio out with the baby. It'll be great for her. She'll have more time to focus on college, and I don't have to leave again for another two weeks, after I get back at the end of this week, so she'll have time to prepare." They spoke for a time longer, he gave her a rundown of Marley and how she would be of service. By the time that they hung up, Mercedes was sitting at the bar inside of the shop with Stefan in her arms, trying to mentally prepare herself not to think about the negatives… not to sabotage herself.


	3. The Relation

_So, I got a few votes for me writing a Steerio story… It probably wouldn't be very long, but the jury is still out on whether or not I'm gonna do that. I need more feedback. There is some mention of Steerio in this chapter, and Cheerio is seen in it for a time, but I'ma need y'all to let me know if you think that their journey from what we saw in LOTBS ch 14 through, say… Cowboy's birth is something worth me putting my time into or should I just eventually get around to writing another drabble for them?_

_Also, I know that most of my readers read all of my stuff, but in case anyone doesn't read other stuff, I wanna apologize for the spaced out updates. Dealing with a lot of hard stuff right now and I just haven't been able to write as much (or as well) as I would like._

**The Relation**

Dwight sat inside of POM, at the bar with an infant on his knee, reading when the cashier, April was passing by on her way off of work, "Oh my Goodness!" She cooed, "And WHO is this cute little thing, here?" Dwight looked up and smiled at her as she leaned over to greet the baby.

"This is my grandson," Dwight answered, proudly.

April's eyes widened and she stood up straight, "Well, I didn't know that Sam and Cedes had a kid. I thought that they were waitin' for marriage." Her hand was on her hip as she handled the surprise of seeing the small biracial child on his grandfather.

"Oh, no… this is my younger son, Stevie's baby," Dwight answered, bouncing the boy on his knee. "His name's Stefan Robinson Evans. We call him Cowboy."

"Stevie? That's the one that's locked away… Well, how'd he…? I'm sorry. It isn't any of my business," she said. "Mind if I hold him?"

"Not at all," Dwight said, handing over the baby. "And to answer your curiosity, at the first institution that Stevie was in, they weren't properly monitored. Not only did he get into several fights there, which we didn't find out about until much later, but this was able to happen." Dwight gestured at the baby in the woman's arms. He loved his family, but Stevie had been in no position to become a father, and even though he loved Cowboy to pieces, he had not been ready to help raise his grandchild, with everything going on. "The security staff would see the kids sneaking off together and watch them on the cameras instead of alerting somebody to it. Holly was able to drain that place dry. They're paying for every single diaper that we put on Cowboy, amongst everything else his mom needs, right now, and Stevie's at another location. The place he was at has been shut down."

"So wait… Security was just waiting around for your kid and this girl to put on a kiddie porn show for them?" She asked. "This world never fails to be a crappy place."

"I think it's a beautiful world, it just has a lot of crappy people in it."

April bopped the baby on the nose with her finger and asked, "And where's the mama, now? She in another place or did she transfer with Papa?"

"No, she's in high school. I pick Cowboy up from daycare for her, because she has cheerleading. It's her senior year. I want her to be able to enjoy it, especially because Stevie didn't get a chance to enjoy his own." Dwight looked at April, smiling at the baby and making faces at him. She was… pretty. He'd noticed it before, of course, but maybe not up close. "She usually meets me here and catches a ride with Stacie. I guess that you're usually gone before then."

"Yeah, I'm running late today and I've most likely already missed my bus, so I'll have to wait, anyway. But I just had to stop and say hey to this little guy. I have always wanted one of these things," she said hoisting the baby up as a gesture.

"A baby?" He asked.

"Yeah. I was just always so much of a screw up that it never happened. Now, it's too late. I mean, everything still works and all, I just can't start trying to be a mom at my age. Maybe I can marry a guy that's already got kids. Better yet, maybe I can marry a guy that has a baby! I am not too proud to be a cougar stepmom," she said and laughed.

"If everything still works, then it's not too late. And it isn't like you're all that old. You should go for it. You'd be quite the MILF," Dwight told her.

April laughed and blushed, "I wouldn't expect a gentleman like you to say something like that, Mr. Evans."

"What? Isn't that what the kids call the cool moms?" He asked.

Now, she laughed out loud as she handed him back his grandson. "Actually, it stands for something…" She leaned in his ear to whisper it and he immediately turned red.

"I'm so sorry about that, April," he said.

She sucked her teeth and curved her mouth to the side, as she punched him in the shoulder, playfully, "Not sorrier than I am. Kinda liked the sound of being your ILF." He turned an even brighter red and she cleared her throat and gestured towards Cowboy, "So your other son… He has a, you know… I guess your grandkid is mixed? I'm sorry. I never know the correct words for those kinds of relationships. I don't have a problem with them or nothing; I just don't know what to call them."

"Interracial," Dwight told her, "And yes, Cowboy's mom is a black girl. She and Stevie aren't together, though. Well, of course, because he's locked up, but I meant that they aren't an actual couple. I think that he worries about it holding her back while she's out here and he's in there. I used to have a problem with it and I'll admit that even though I LOVE our Doll, I still have some reservations about this one. She's not as stable. She's polite to the family, but she can be a little off-putting and she still has some emotional issues. I would have preferred that she and Stevie not had made such a mistake, at this time."

"Oh, none of these little guys are mistakes, Mr. Evans. All of them were planned by God and knowing your other son, and your sweet lil' daughter, I'm willing to bet that your son Stevie and this Cowboy kid'll all be great. You definitely done something right, Mr. Evans, to make kids like Sam and Stacie. The other one's probably gonna be better, before too long. It took me a while to get my shit together…" She winced at her own language and shook her head.

"I didn't mean that Cowboy is a mistake. Of course, I know that he wasn't. I just feel like these kids were in no position to have a child." He shook his head, but when he looked at the boy, who looked pretty much just like Stevie did as a baby, except for a bit of tinted gold skin and curly brown hair (he even had bluish gray eyes) and he smiled and gathered him closer. "He's spoiled like crazy by me and both of his aunts…"

Cheerio entered the building as Dwight and April were talking and she smiled and accepted Cowboy, glad to see him. April smiled and said, "Hi – you must be…"

"I'm Cheri," Cheerio answered, a bit nervously. "And you are?"

April gestured to one of the photos on the wall and said, "I'm April. I cashier here. I was just admiring your kid. He's adorable. He looks nothing like you, though. You sure he's yours?" She joked. Cheerio stared at her and cradled her son to herself.

"Do we know this woman?" She wondered, quietly. Someday, she would escape from Ohio and move on to bigger, better things, free of paranoia. But, until then, her child's father turned on and killed a prominent white supremacist and every blond person she saw looked suspect to her, especially because when she had a listed phone number, she had gotten threatening calls.

"She's good, Cheerio," Dwight answered, wrapping his arm around the young lady.

She smiled and extended a hand to shake, "I'm Cheri Charming, obviously a friend of the Evans family. This is my little cowboy, Stefan. He looks so much like his daddy because I literally wanted to legit murder him the entire time I was pregnant." April let out an extremely loud laugh and shook her head. Cheerio smiled politely and took a seat on the bar.

"So… April, you have to ride the bus? Do you want a ride, somewhere?" Dwight offered.

"Oh, that'd be great. I'm staying at this halfway house, across town. I hope that you don't mind?" She asked.

"Not at all. I live on the other side of town. Cheri, you are waiting on Stacie, right?" He asked.

"Sure, Papa. I'm going to have a latte and start on my homework," she said, unpacking cheer bag with one hand and balancing her baby with the other. She watched Dwight and the woman named April leave and texted Stacie _**I think Papa Evans has found himself a honeypot! Some chick named April, cashiers here. **_

_**Don't be ridic. My daddy is not checking for that woman! **_ Stacie replied, quickly.

Cheerio chuckled at her friend and replied: _**IDGAF what you say, Gurl. I know what I saw! Papa Evans was all about that chick. You don't like her? Do we need to scare her off.**_

Stacie texted once again _**… She's nice. I don't know. I guess that I still am not used to the thought of him moving on. I mean, I know that he deserves to and he should, but it still kinda hurts to think about. SIGH! Anyway, we're on our way back and I need to stop text/driving.**_

Stacie opened the door of the shop for Mercedes and she entered, with her dogs, and made a beeline for the bar to snatch up Cowboy. The shop was covered in all kinds of pink decorations and merchandise for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Mercedes was dressed in an adorable assorted pinks outfit. "Let me leave the dogs in the back and we'll head to the store," she told Cheerio, who smiled at her, frequently forgetting that unspoken gestures were lost on her.

"I'll put them away," Stacie said and reached for the leashes.

When Stacie went into the back room, Mercedes faced Cheerio's direction and asked, "How was school?"

"Good, Miss Jones," she answered.

"You know that you don't have to call me that. Mercedes is fine. You can call me Mercy. Thanks to your brother-in-law, mostly everyone calls me Babydoll, or you can just call me Doll, like Papa," Mercedes said with a bright smile.

"Can I call you MISS Babydoll?" Cheerio asked.

"If you insist, but heck – we're family," Mercedes told her.

"Hardly. I mean, it's not like what happened between Stevie and I was real or ever gonna go anywhere. I'm not ashamed to admit that it was a fleeting thing and we both were in a weird place. I did crazier things in my life. You all don't have to try to make me feel like I'm a member of the family, because you and I both know that wouldn't ever happen," her voice sounded extremely sad as she said this, but she quickly piped up and said, "SO! I actually think that Papa's got himself a little crush!"

"April?" Mercedes asked.

"Yes! What's she like, anyway, because I can't lie – we might not be family, but I can't just let anybody near Papa!" Cheerio said.

"She's a sweetheart. Sometimes, she can be a bit irresponsible, but she's very generous and I think they could do each other a lot of good. Is there any reason that you have not to approve?" Mercedes asked, curiously. There was something off about the young lady's tone.

"Well, not really. I mean… I'd be worried about Cornflake. It's hard enough for him to not be able to see Cowboy like he would want to… I don't know how he would handle the stress of his dad moving on, even if it was superficial. I mean, he's where he is because of his mom and she'll always be a trigger for him. Even Stacie seems to have an issue with Papa Evans being attracted to somebody and Cornflake's much more sensitive than she is."

"For somebody who claims that there's nothing between the two of you, you certainly do a lot of worrying about each other," Mercedes said with a smile. Cheerio didn't respond. She never did, if this subject came up. Yeah, she and Stevie were friends and they would always be – they sort of had to be, because they did have a child to consider. But, he'd made it pretty clear that he would not even so much as entertain trying to have a real relationship with her, and she would never bruise her dignity further by pining over him.

Balancing out friends and family was still difficult for Mercedes. So many new people were in her world now, and none of her friendships were superficial. Stacie kept her up to speed. The younger woman was a social mastermind – knowing how to harvest time and plant attention like it was one of her gardens. Mercedes became quite dependent upon Stacie as her assistant and had no idea how she would get used to a different assistant when on the road, but hey – it would be different surroundings and it would only be happening for a few months. It would end before Christmas and they wouldn't have to worry about all of that additional mess for a while, afterwards.

The most stressful part was still to come, though. Sam loved her. It was true and obvious. But, would he still want her after he was wiped clean, for good? His life changes and his status change had not stolen him away – but what about when he had a new physical image? The sighted put so much emphasis on what people looked like. Missy Gunderson already had great plans for the new and improved Sam Evans, who was not even arrived yet. Mercedes biggest fear was that this would be the last thing… She feared that once Sam looked as pleasing to everyone else as he was charming, attractive, and everything else… She would become a thing of the past. That was why she couldn't marry him. That was why she was holding back. He still hadn't risen to the level that the procedure would entail. She had to wait until he was complete and was still with her for a while after that. She didn't want to break his heart by making him wait, but she still didn't know if he realized how different things might be for him when the sighted could see him as she did – without blemish.

Stacie kissed her on the cheek and asked, "What are you thinking so hard about, Sis?"

"Your brother. I love him so much and I really miss him," she said.

"Why do you seem worried about something?" Stacie wondered.

"I… maybe a little worried about the upcoming changes," Mercedes admitted.

"Nothing to fear. If I don't have faith in anything else, I know for a fact that Sammy and you are always going to endure. No change will ever come between the two of y'all." She latched one arm into Mercedes' and one into Cheerio's. "Heck – my bros have both found their soul mates. Now, y'all need to help me find mine."

"Hmph. I have an idea of a potential," Cheerio mused and lipped to her _Joe. _Stacie leaned over and placed a small bite on Cheerio's cheek. The girl simply laughed.

"Well, let's hope that things work out for me the way that they have for y'all," Stacie said.

"Yeah – me and Cornflake are just friends who ended up having a baby together, just throwing that back out there. You keep forgetting," Cheerio said.

"_You _keep forgetting that I followed Stevie out of the womb and I know him better than anybody. I may not be able to decipher you that well, which I think I do a darned good job of it, to be honest – but I KNOW how my brother feels about you. You and Cowboy are his family and if he was out, trust me, he'd never leave your side." Cheerio shrugged her shoulders and continued pushing the basket that Cowboy's seat was resting on with her free hand.

It was a relief to not have to worry about Missy for the plane trip. She basically had no business with him for the next couple of weeks and if anything came up, he already planned to be unavailable. Sam was extremely happy to be home, again. He left his bag, his phone, note book, everything outside of the room and went inside to see her. She had on one of those baby doll nighties, and her hair was tied up in a bun. "Babydoll…" He sighed.

Mercedes had been lying on her belly, reading, when she heard her name and his voice, actually here, with her! She smiled and sat up, "Well, well… if it isn't Mr. Amazing!" She cheered as he rushed to jump into the bed with her and to kiss her. "I missed you!"

"And you know I missed your pretty face. I'm so glad that you'll start coming with me, again. Missy makes me want to scream, and you know that you're my only source of peace."

"The Lord," she said, nuzzling her nose against his.

"Uh, yeah… I'm pre-tty sure that He made _you_ to do all that while He's taking on being God of the universe and stuff. In other news, you have a new nightie and it is doing something to me," he said. "Who took you shopping for this?" He wondered.

"Got it when I went Halloween shopping with your sister and sister-in-law," she said, happily. "You… don't like it?" She asked in a small voice.

"Um.. no, it's not that. It's just – remember how we talked about how seeing you in some stuff makes me want to rip it off of you and pound you through the bed? This is one of those things. Plus, with your hair up, your neck and chest and shoulders are exposed and… I have to go to the bathroom…" He rushed out of the room and she sighed.

When he reentered the room, he kissed her on her nose and snuggled against her. "Now, I need my cuddles, because I missed my Babydoll." She spun around to face him and cuddled closer to him. "I don't want us to ever be apart like that again," he said. "It's time for me to switch my phone number again. I was getting those calls." She froze in his arms.

"God, do they ever stop?" She whispered.

"I don't care if they ever stop. I mean, even though I was young, I made my choices. All I care about is that nobody hurts you. I couldn't take it." Kissed her on the neck and smelled her. "You mean everything in the world to me." He pulled her closer and kissed her more.

Aha! Normalcy! Sam thought as he helped Joe to carry in all of the merchandise from POM to set up for the Fire Safety Fair. He saw Cheerio with her cheerleader friends, all of them in their POM/Cheerios T-shirts and painted faces. She had a clipboard in her hand, directing them to certain employees from POM, for further assistance. Dwight had Cowboy with him, as he sat at a booth, next to Mercy. Lauren and Becky were setting up the booth and handing off materials to cheerios for different purposes.

Sam nodded his head and Tina, Kurt and Quinn, who were set up near one of the donation booths for the families of lost firefighters. There were also booths for helping the families who had lost everything in fires, for programs in the schools for fire safety awareness, for volunteer firefighters and for the fire department of Lima. Quinn forced a tight smile and nodded back at him, but Tina practically ran over to give him a hug and almost tackled him to the ground. He laughed and set his box down to return the hug. "Girl, you better not let Mike see this. Don't firemen carry axes?"

"He's a volunteer firefighter, doofus. Though I would be awfully impressed if he were able to be a doctor and a fireman at the same time," Tina said and kissed Sam on the cheek. "So, how's traveling. I feel like I haven't seen you in months."

"Yeah, the times that I rolled through town were just long enough to cuddle with my Babydoll and give me family hugs. Traveling is good. I got you some autographs, but they're at home," Sam said. She fist bumped him, trusting him for whomever he got autographs for her from. Sam knew her as well as her closest friends.

"The ladies miss you," Tina told him, "But, some of them are going to be here today, so hopefully you'll have a chance to say hello."

"Yeah – and maybe we can finally set up that book signing. Missy told me not to do it, but I'll just have to face her wrath about it," Sam said.

Tina sighed and her smiled faded. "Yeah – about that Missy chick… I don't know how to take her. I mean, she's helped you out a lot and as your friend, I am totally grateful about that. But, Quinn says that people's personalities and character have been brought into question and even though Mercy takes up for the woman, I have known my girl long enough to know that Missy makes her feel some kind of bad way."

"Missy has a problem understanding that people are not marketing tools," he admitted, "But she honestly takes care of me. Mercy has more of a problem with the overall picture. The fame, the traveling, the interviews, the reporters, the fans and all that stuff is kinda overwhelming for her. Gotta remember that she can't see any of it, so it's mostly a bunch of noise and being bumped around." He shook his head and said, "But, when we leave, she has a new assistant who is EXCELLENT at her job and she'll make sure that she doesn't have to deal with much of the stress that being out there usually causes."

"Stacie is not going to know what to do with her days," Tina said.

"Oh, no – she's gonna have a part time involvement here. She spoke to Shane and signed up for some kind of internship…" Sam paused and looked at a guy who was leaning over Mercedes' shoulder talking to her while she laughed. "Who's that?" He wondered.

"Oh! Oh, you haven't had the chance to meet him!" Tina said and folded her arms, biting her lip. "He surfaced not too long ago. We knew of him, but not much about him. But, that's actually Puck's little brother, Jacob."

"I didn't know that Puck had a brother," Sam said, his throat tightening. Of all of their friends who were depicted in poor light, Puck was probably the worse. He had been painted as abusive towards Mercedes, aggressive towards Sam, deceitful to his friends and as a murderer. Sam sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "I suppose that I should meet him, eventually. He hate me?" He asked.

"He hates most people, seems like… But not Mercy. He doesn't seem to hate her at all, if you know what I mean?" Tina said.

Sam sighed. He knew exactly what she meant and he saw it for himself. That kid almost had it as bad as his brother had. Sam walked up to the table, calmly. He smiled softly at the guy and extended a hand, "Hi. I'm Sam, Mercedes' fiancé."

"Yeah," the young man said, nodding his head in acknowledgment. "I know who you are."

Mercedes took a deep breath and said, "Sam, this is Jacob Puckerman, Noah's half-brother, and I have already let him know that even though Puck did the things that he did to us that he is perfectly welcome here and he and I are friends. He and I visit Noah's grave together, sometimes." She smiled towards Jacob and said, "And he helps around the shop when we need a little man muscle."

"It's my pleasure to help out," he said. "I'm going to catch up with Cheri and see if the cheerios need any help with anything." He squeezed Mercedes shoulder, pinched Cowboy's nose, glanced at Dwight, and glared at Sam before moving on.

"He seems nice," Sam said sarcastically.

"He's actually a lot like Puck," Mercedes said.

Sam asked, "Dad, think you could come have a little walk with me?"

"Don't leave me at the table by myself. At least leave my nephew with me," she said, reaching out for Cowboy. Dwight handed him over and went with Sam. She immediately began jiggling the baby boy around on her lap and singing to him.

"Doll's going to be a great mother. I wish like crazy that the two of you started first," Dwight said.

Sam sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "She doesn't even seem to want to marry me, so starting to have kids is a little out of the question right now," he said. "But, I'm more concerned about this Puckerman kid."

"Of course, I'm keeping an eye on everything when you're gone. The kid is just that – a kid. He's hotheaded, angry that he didn't have a father, upset that his mom is poor, and bitter that his brother is dead because of some things that were related to you. You better believe that I'm keeping an eye on him," Dwight said.

Sam sighed and told him, "I know that you're taking care of her. I just worry. But, she'll be by my side, from now on, so… at least I'll have _some _peace." Sam watched Jacob bothering Cheerio and she took a swing at him, but it seemed playful. "He's in good with Cheerio, too, I see?"

"They go to school together," Dwight said.

"What does Stace think of the kid?" He asked.

"You know Stacie – any friend of Mercedes' is a friend of hers, except for Quinn," Dwight said.

"She's still not giving her any breaks?" Sam wondered.

"You know – we really ought to have ourselves a nice long talk soon, but not right now. This is a great celebration and the gang and the cheerleaders have worked real hard on making it a success. We'll think about all the other stuff later." He slapped Sam on the shoulder and squeezed it. There was more that he needed to discuss with him. Now simply wasn't the time. "Why don't you go keep Doll company? Y'all have been apart long enough and I think it'll be good for the both of you to be together with the baby for a little bit." Sam nodded and folded his arms as he returned to the table.

He sat down and kissed her on the forehead. "Those better be the lips of one Sam Evans," Mercedes warned.

"Oh, Woman – you know that you know these lips when you feel them!" He teased, brushing his nose against her forehead.

"I don't know. I might need a taste, just to be positive," she said.

"I am not opposed to these experiments," he told her and leaned forward for a kiss. She smiled and pressed herself closer to him for his arms to wrap around her and the baby. "Guess you're convinced that it's me, now?" He asked.

"I suppose it's my Mr. Amazing," she said with a smile. Sam pulled his attention from her only for a moment to see Tina and Quinn arguing with someone, who he couldn't see from that angle. He was curious, but stayed where he was watching as the two women pointed away from the center and Shane, Joe and Stacie appeared to be heading that way too. But, whoever they were forcing away started to leave and Sam reflexively tightened his hold around Mercedes when he saw Terri Schuester and another vaguely familiar blond woman leaving with their donations bags.

Terri looked right at him when she left and while the other blond woman was being belligerent and uncooperative, Terri simply pulled her arm and led her away as she smirked in Sam's direction and waved her fingers at him. Tina angrily stormed over to where Sam and Mercedes were and let out a frustrated breath. "The nerve of that woman!"

"Who?" Mercedes asked, comforting a now irritated Cowboy by moving him to her shoulder.

"Terri Schuester!" Tina snapped. "She and her crazy sister just tried to barter their way into this event with donations, like we would let anybody who has had anything to do with any of them anywhere near us! She may have been able to escape the system, but she's got another thing coming if she thinks that she can just do whatever she wants around this camp. Let me see my nephew," Tina said and pretty much snatched Cowboy from Mercedes. Almost as soon as she had, she changed the subject, "I'm so glad that we got Cowboy here to appease all of our tempers." She nuzzled her nose to him. "I am going to have one as soon as I get married."

"So… Terri was _here? _Like, just now?" Mercedes asked. "Did she go anywhere near the dogs?"

"No. She didn't go anywhere near anything, because I didn't let her. She started spouting some stuff about how she's supposed to be the new cheerios coach or something since we destroyed her husband and she lost everything, like that's _our _ fault or problem."

"Wait… She's going to be the new coach of the cheerleaders that my sister-in-law is captain of? There has got to be something that forbids her to do that, after everything that her family put our family through. Even if she wasn't convicted of anything , can't we slap something on her that keeps her away from us AND Cheri? I don't care what anyone says or thinks about her and Stevie, that girl is just as much a part of our family as anybody."

"I'll call Holly," Sam said, rubbing Mercedes' shoulder as she clasped both of her hands on the table. "They can't hurt us anymore." Sam pulled her close and glared out into the opening, at nothing in particular. Yeah, this was what normalcy felt like. He remembered, now.


	4. The Red Flag

****_Ugh, forever with problems on this end! I THINK that I've found my way around trying to make sure that my story lines don't sound/seem too much like others out there, because that has been a major issue for me and many of my fics lately and an added reason that its taken so long to update. Hopefully, though - things are going in a more unique direction than they were in my outlines. Love you guys. Hope y'all had a Happy Thanksgiving and that y'all enjoy the chapter. It was difficult for different reasons._

**The Red Flag**

The whole Terri Schuester thing alarmed Mercedes, but she tried not to focus too much on it. The festivities were enough of a distraction and her friends were all around her. The dogs, though - she felt the need to keep close. She would never forget the scare that she had been given when they were poisoned. She and Sam were around each other, but... she realized something - things had changed. His mere presence should have brought her comfort and made her feel safe and secure. She still felt anxious, though. That made such little sense to her, as she knew that previously, when there was more potential dangers, she felt much more protected. She took a deep breath and reached for his hand. She felt his lips press against the back of hers and her held it close to his heart. Tina stared at the two of them with a confused expression...

Sam was going to be taking Mercedes home and elected himself to take over Stacie's regular duties, though Stacie fought him on taking over the trip to the community center. Sam drove a pretty big, black truck; that he really put a lot into and adored. He always had to help his lady into the thing. Tonight was no exception, either. He was parked right next to the POM van, which Stacie was loading Cheerio's stuff into. Cheerio was approaching them with Cowboy on her hip and Jacob next to her. Sam shut Mercy's door and went to see if they needed any help. He noticed that Cheerio froze when he came near her. She had that kind of bad. He was unsure of why, but she always seemed nervous or uncomfortable around him. She smiled at Jacob and wished him a good night, then moved around Sam to buckle her baby in.  
"Y'all need help with anything else?" Sam asked, watching Jacob leave, into the darkness, not getting into a vehicle.  
"I think we're good," Stacie said. "Gonna drop them off at the apartment, then I'll be home. I have to finish the last of the mum orders that I have for homecoming, then, probably gonna start my sketches for these pumpkin carving orders."  
"Look at you being a big girl, all responsible, like," Sam said and gave her a hug and a kiss on the top of the head.  
"My role model opened her own business at age 16. I'm a couple of years behind and currently just doing odd jobs," she said.  
"Well, she didn't do it alone and its not like it's a competition. You're a great addition to her staff with those artistic skills of yours and because you can do flowers and stuff, it cuts costs on her having to order all of those for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day and stuff. You benefit her, to be honest. You're doing great work, Stace. You and Cheri," has said and looked at Cheerio.  
Cheerio furrowed her eyebrows and threw him a suspicious look, "I haven't been doing anything," she commented.  
"No? You haven't been raising a kid alone and captaining a championship cheer squad for the past few months, while remaining on the honor roll?" He asked.  
"Oh! Well, I'm just doing what I have to do and what I want to do. Nothing special about that, Mr. Motivational Speaker," she said.  
"I think it's pretty admirable, Kid," he told her, then told both of them, "My welcome back breakfast is tomorrow at Emma's, 9:00."  
"I'll be there right after church," Stacie said.  
"Gonna have house church. Joe's officiating. Babydoll's gonna sing. I'm gonna pray. Tina's gonna do a reading..." Sam was saying, as Stacie became visibly excited about all of this. "The nonbeliever's are gonna be arriving around 11, after they've had a chance to miss us being all Christian-like."  
"Sounds awesome. Can hardly wait," she said.  
"I can praise dance," Cheerio suggested. "I mean, I haven't really done it in a while, because I don't go to church anymore, but I always enjoyed it. That was the time that I felt closest to whoever God is."  
"I shall tell them that you're on the program, then," he said, with a smile and offered her a hug. When the young ladies were in the van, he got into his truck to Mercedes rocking from side to side and singing along with music.

Sam lied on the bed while Mercedes went through her nightly routine of getting ready for bed. It took her awhile to get used to the new home, even though their bedroom was set up practically identical to the previous one. He just rested and watched. This was one of his simple pleasures. "Babydoll, you need anything before we go to sleep?"  
"Just for you to let me pray with you. I missed that, so much," she said.  
"That's a given, Babe," he said in a low voice as she came over to the bed. He got up and they both got on their knees. He always got on his knees to pray - she only did so when she was in church or with him. This was always something that reminded her that they had gotten past so much together and she did not have to worry about him moving on, ever. But, that feeling faded. She wanted to talk about it, but then again, that would only hurt him. He would think that she didn't trust him, that she had no faith in them. She had to keep her worries to herself. Some part of her knew that they were irrational and unprecedented... Even though it had happened to her in the past, this was SAM... He would never do that to her.  
She snuggled close to him and squeezed him tightly. Sam kissed the top of her head, stroked her hair and whispered, "What's wrong, Baby? Why won't you talk to me? You know that you can..."  
"I know," she whispered back and held him tightly. "I've just been afraid, that's all. My chemicals are unbalancing. Nothing a change in meds can't fix." He stared at her face and he knew that even though that might be true, there was more, but if she didn't want to tell him, he couldn't make her, no matter how sad it made him. Feeling his eyes on her, she touched his face and whispered, "I love you."  
He sighed and told her, "I love you too... Babydoll... I need for us to get better with time, not... this."  
"Sam, I don't know what to do..."  
"TALK to me," he pleaded. "Our relationship should never override our friendship. If we let it, we will destroy our relationship, and I can't live like that. I could never go back to a life without you, or a life with only a portion of you!" He pressed his chin to the top of her head as he squeezed her, "I feel like I've messed things up. I only wanted to make a better way for us, so that I could be a man and take care of you, for once and forever. If I had to give all of this up and give it all back and go back to being a kept man in order to make things better between us, I would. I didn't feel like I was worthy of you. I wanted to be able to try to get to the point, but if it makes you happier to be the one that takes care of me, I'd simply have to learn to swallow my pride."  
"Sam... That's not it..." She said, desperately.  
"Well, what is it? Until you tell me, all I can do is assume..."  
"THAT'S it! Sam - why would you have to assume and to assume the worse? I wouldn't try to treat you like some pet boyfriend! Do you not remember when I had to say absolutely nothing and you could give an entire speech on exactly what I was feeling, what I was thinking, and what I would and wouldn't do? It was one of the first things that I fell in love with - that you knew me, really knew me." She shifted and sat up, her face pointed towards the open of the bedroom. "I'm the exact same person that I've _always_ been, Sam. I have not changed one bit. I've always been a private person and I've never been very open about what's deep down inside of me."  
"You have with me," he reminded her.  
"I was... but you've changed. That's not to say for the worse. You are perfectly within your right to want more for yourself than I could offer and I am so proud of you for not letting anything stop you from becoming great. I am so happy that you're confident and that you're happy and at peace. I would never complain about it or resent you for it. I just... I haven't changed, Sam. I have the same worries and fears that I have had since I was a teenage girl." She moved away from him, embarrassed. She had not wanted to talk about this, but he was forcing her to do it.

Sam sighed and said, "When we're miles apart, and I can't see you, hold you, know that you're safely in my care - I can't rest. I worry so much about you and I fear somebody finding you and coming after you. I sometimes can barely breathe and that's why I'll call at these inconvenient hours, at times. I need to know that you're okay. You're always gonna be the most important thing in my life. You don't have nothing to worry about with losing me. If anything, I'M scared to lose YOU, Babydoll." He moved closer to her again and collected her in his arms. "I know what its like to have nothing and I know what its like to have everything, but if I were to lose you, and still have all of this other stuff... Babe... I'd have less than nothing. You are MORE than everything, to me. I wouldn't give you up. I wouldn't leave you. I wouldn't let you go."  
She turned around and wrapped her arms around him, straddling his lap and resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm not gonna let this happen to us, Mercy. I refuse to let us become distant friends in love, when we're right here, with each other. We are never separating," he promised. "I would never accept that much less cause it."  
"I already know that Sam," she said with a sniffle, "I just... I have to live it out, okay?" She nodded her head towards him. "I know that you love me. I know that you never want to leave me, but my mind tells me that it makes sense for that to change and the changes that you've made recently just make it that much harder for me to reconcile what I know to the dread I feel.. Its my condition... It isn't anything that you can help..." She bit her lip and squeezed him tighter.  
"There's always something to help, Baby. Just tell me what you need me to do."  
"Prove me wrong," she said.  
"I plan to and I will," he said and kissed her. "I'm going to show you."  
"I know that," she said and kissed him, snuggling closer.

"So, you didn't notice it, at all?" Tina asked Mike.  
He sighed and shook his head, "With everything going on, I barely had a chance to even say hi to Sam and Mercy, so no – I didn't notice anything off about them. BUT, if there is something going on, they are the two people that I trust more than anyone else in the world to work everything out."  
"I think that she's afraid of something. Maybe, she's worried that he's changing. Maybe he IS changing. Maybe she's afraid of the limelight…" Tina babbled.  
"T! Please come to bed. Today was exhausting," Mike suggested.  
"Yeah, yeah it was. I can't believe that Terri tried to come and claim that she's the new coach of the cheerios, as if that would mean anything to me," Tina said, finally climbing into bed. "And that sister of hers almost got punched right in the lips. She said, 'You people go on a killing spree of our family and friends and have the nerve to try to restrain us?' Oh, she better be glad that Phai wasn't around. Which reminds me, I wonder if she's going to make the meeting with Sam. It would be good to have her there. The ladies miss her and him." She yawned and Mike smiled at her. "You know that I get irrationally talkative when I'm tired," she defended herself.  
"I didn't say anything!" He retorted and pulled her close to him.  
"I never want to leave my friends behind, but hell – maybe Phai had the right idea. I saw a post of her, Matt, Sebastian and Jeremiah in Acapulco for vacation… She looks freaking amazing! Her skin, her smile, her hair – it's all radiant and she seems so happy. I'm wondering if a move could do me some good," Tina said.  
"Well, thankfully, there is always room for another doctor, so finding work shouldn't be a problem, for me, but what would you do all day if you didn't have the shop?" Mike wondered.  
"I could open another, smaller shop and do exactly what I do now. All I do is dress other people. All of the designing and most of the constructing is Kurt. If I happen to be that bored – I can get a job at a bridal shop or Men's Warehouse or something and do what I do at The Magic Mirror. But, knowing me, I would have to have my own place. I'm so much better at being my boss than anyone else is at being my boss." She yawned again and he chuckled.  
"Where are you thinking about moving to?" He wondered.  
"Hawaii," she said.  
"Well then…" Mike said, with a puzzled expression.  
"Rachel was going on and on about it, because Finn was stationed there and it kind of became home for her, even though she's still mad crazy in love with New York, where she went to college and is probably gonna end up there again, she thinks that it'd be a nice fit for me. And can you imagine me on the beach in a bikini, or learning to surf?"  
"You. Bikini. Surf. Best. Visual. Ever." He said and nuzzled closely to her, kissing her and pushing himself against her. "Since you refuse to go to sleep on your own, the doctor is going to have to give you a dosage of something to help you out with that…"

Mercedes woke up and felt the bed empty. She immediately sat up erect and reached over to feel for Sam. She'd fallen asleep on his lap, in his arms and sort of wanted to wake up the same way... "I'm here, Babydoll," she heard him say softly from near his closet. She sighed and tried to catch her breath, wondering why the hell she was so panicked by him not being there. "Good mornin,' Babe." He said and made his way to her to kiss her on the forehead and hug her. "You alright?"  
"Good morning. I don't know... Maybe, I'll feel better after church. I think that I'm just drained from that talk we had last night," she said.  
"Yeah, well - the longer you hold stuff in the more draining it'll be when you finally let it go." He cupped her face, "I don't want you to think that you ever have to do that." He strummed her face with his thumbs. staring at her. It was always perplexing to him that she would ever think he'd be a fool enough to ever let her go. She was his everything. "You need anything this morning before we head to Emma's?" he asked.  
"No... I love you, Sam," she said and squeezed both of his hands.  
"I love you too."

Emma was in the kitchen, with Shannon, helping to prepare breakfast while the others were in the gathering room. "So, I suppose we'll be doing this in silence, then?" Emma asked.  
Shannon frowned and shook her head,, "Whatever you want, Emma."  
"I want you to stop acting like I'm some sickly child," Emma said, tersely.  
"All I've been doing is cutting up meat for the breakfast burritos, Em. My silence is not indicative of anything," Shannon said. "But the way that you start these arguments - that is childish and yes, a little sick, Emma..."  
Emma's lip quivered and she threw down her spatula. "I'm going to join the others for the service," she said and left the room with her eyes stinging. Shannon was upsetting her, but she couldn't find the words to express what it was that her woman was doing that was causing her to feel the way that she did. It was frustrating and confusing.

Joe had his guitar in hand and smiled as he told everyone, "Welcome - to all of you who have never had the chance to do this before and hello and good day to my familiars. This is actually something that Emma has been so gracious to allow us to do here, but I intend to eventually bring this to my own home and to have sessions such as these as the beginnings of a church. Stacie smiled brightly at that statement as Joe continued speaking. He smiled right back at her and said, "And Stacie was so kind to work on programs for us last night after finding out about this gathering and they came out lovely. Thank you Stace-Face."  
"No problemo Joe-Yo," she said and winked at him. Cheerio fought off a smirk of her own as she simply tilted her head and stared at Joe, who had Sam and Mercedes on one side of him and Quinn on the other.  
"We are going to open up a prayer and with a song that my friends Quinn, Sam and Mercy are gonna help me with - one that everyone knows, then we'll have a reading by Tina, a few more song selections, including a praise dance ministry by Miss Cheri, who I am very glad to see hear this morning. Then, I'll do message, we may sing more songs and have a closing prayer circle."  
Stacie grabbed Cheerio's hand. She was nervous. She had spent most of the night working on the choreography for what she wanted to present and to find out that she would be the last thing right before Joe sermon, or whatever made her feel even more nervous.

Joe opened in prayer, thanking God for everyone gathered and those who wanted to come but couldn't and for the Holy Spirit to be present. Then, he began playing his guitar and he and Quinn began to sing, "Lord, we lift your name on high. Lord, we live to sing your praises. I'm so glad you're in my life. I'm so glad you came to save me."  
Sam and Mercedes came in on, "You came from Heaven to Earth, to show the way, from the Earth to the cross, my debt to pay. From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky - Lord we lift your name on high..." The rest of the group joined in, eventually, through the end of the song.  
Then, Tina played music for an upbeat song as Joe, Quinn and Sam moved back some and Artie rolled up front and center with Mercedes. Cheri smiled brightly and began to clap her hands together. She knew this song. This was her jam, at some point! Sam smiled at her enthusiasm as he, Joe, Quinn and Tina began to sing the chorus for Artie and Mercedes, "I don't even know, where my life would be; If you hadn't shown, shown your love towards me. Broke the chains, chains that were binding me. Gave me liberty. Set me free.."  
Artie started in with the male part with Stacie and Cheerio rocking from side to side to the music. "If it hadn't been for the Lord who, who was on my side; I'd be lost like a ship, without a guide..."  
Dwight bounced Cowboy on his shoulder as he looked at the program Set Me Free - Myron Butler... He had never hear this song before in his life. He smiled over at Emma, who simply was staring ahead, seemingly dead to the world. She forced a smile when she noticed him, but it quickly faded into obscurity. He frowned, and glanced at his daughter and... whatever it was that Cheri was to him clapping and rocking. They were both now standing up and Cheri was singing along.

Artie and Mercedes sounded great together. When they finished that song, the music for a slower song began to play and rolled himself backwards to line up with the others, though Mercedes stayed front and center. She took a deep breath and began to sing, "I've got so much to thank God for. So many wonderful blessings and SO many open doors. For brand new mercies, along, with each new day. That's why I praise you, and for this I give you praise..." Cheerio knew that song! Mercedes sang it so well, too. She sounded so much like a professional. Her voice struck Cheerio right through the heart. She had heard her sing before, but there was something about this song and this setting that was tearing her to shreds and reducing her to a standing pile of tears. For Every Mountain - Kurt Carr... Dwight had heard it before at Mercedes' church, but nowhere else.

When Mercedes was done, she found her way back to her seat and Tina read something from the Bible and when she was done, she went to the IPOD again, ready to play Cheri's music for her. Cheri got in the center of the room and said, "Hey - just a few words, first. First off - Thank you Miss Babydoll, because you're like a mom and a sister in one. I never had a sister before Stacie and my mom leaves much to be desired in the whole motherly department. Um... Thanks for being wonderful, and for helping me decide a song - which I couldn't decide, so I'm doing two, but I arranged them together, so its not as long as two whole songs. AND - thank you for your singing. It helped me to not be as nervous and to remember that I'm here for God and not to entertain. Thank you." She nodded once at Tina and Tina started the music and returned to her seat.

Cheerio began dancing with the music and simply let the lyrics take her deeper into her ministry. "Oh the worshiper in me wants to be free, from the cares of life that seem to weigh me down..." She danced to the first verse and first chorus of Lawrence Flowers and the Intercession's More, and then the music changed and she was now dancing to More Than Anything by Lamar Campbell.  
"I lift my hands in total adoration to you. You reign on the throne, for you are God and God alone. Because of you my cloudy days are gone, I can sing to you this song..." She danced to most of the song and after the note change of "I love you Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord I love you more than anything, the song returned to the end of the first song, "You're deserving of more. You're deserving of more. You're deserving of MORE! You're deserving of MORE! I give you more! I give you more! I give you more! I give you more! OH OH OH..." By the time she reached completion and looked at the group, she saw them all standing, clapping, Mercedes jumping around and praising loudy and Stacie crying into her prayer hands. Cheri smiled and bowed and made her way to her seat.  
Joe smiled and shook his head, "The Lord does majestic work. Dwight kissed Cheri on the cheek as he passed her the baby and said, "That was beautiful, Cheri."  
She smiled and blushed. She wasn't really used to that kind of recognition, anymore. She hadn't really gotten attention since her injury. Cheerleading was to pump people up for the team...  
Well, this was for God, sort of. She had her mind fully on God for the entire dance, but usually her mind was on everything else. She still believed, she guessed. It was hard not to, because she had been trained to believe, but she didn't really feel any closeness or allegiance outside of dancing to any higher power... In fact, Joe had been talking for minutes and she hadn't even heard a single word, she realized. There was a lot on her mind. She heard her phone buzz and she glanced at it and huffed as she stuffed it deeper into the baby bag.

When everyone else arrived, Cheri had already changed out of her old dress and she put Cowboy in the playpen with Babs. Rachel smiled at her and said, "I heard that your performance was excellent. I almost wish that I could have seen it."  
"Oh... It... I used to dance," Cheri said. She liked Rachel, but she didn't have much in common with her, so she didn't really talk to her much. Plus, she felt hot and flustered.  
She felt ill and dizzy. She turned to her little boy. He helped to balance her out. She had been so well, from the time she became pregnant, and even better afterwards. She knew that she wasn't completely well, but she also knew that even though his birth was unconventional, it was nothing short of a blessing for her, her health and her happiness. She had needed him.

Dwight helped Emma and Shannon bring everything out to the patio and Sam let the dogs out. Shane was talking animatedly with Quinn about shoes. "No, Ma'am... She had on those open toes with the strap all up the calf!" Rachel chuckled and shook her head, then looked at Cheri, lost in thought as she watched her baby. She took the girl's hand and led her to the kitchen.  
Cheri heard was Quinn say, "And that was a reason to go on a date with her."  
"Quinn... her calves were accented by that strap AND the heels made them pop out! You know I'm a legs man and a shoes man. She came with the thunder for both..." Shane was responding when Cheri blacked out in the doorway.

When she came to, everyone was hovered around her and she laughed out loud, "Oh, God - I'm sorry if I scared anyone. I get exhausted sometimes and I pass out."  
"You need to see a doctor," Dwight said, looking relieved. "What if this happened when you were holding Cowboy?"  
"It won't," she said and sat up, on the couch.  
"Give her room, y'all," Sam said, with folded arms. Dwight and Stacie didn't leave the room.  
"Thank God she's alright," Rachel said with her hand over her heart. "That was terrifying." Finn smiled softly and led her away, noticing that her family seemed to be gathering around her.  
Mercedes was leaning against the couch and Sam was standing near her. "Are you sure you're alright?" She asked.  
"No," Stacie said and shook her head. "Cheerio... I... I was looking on your phone to try to find your mom's number and you got a message. I saw it." She handed her the phone and Cheri snatched it and deleted the message.  
"What kind of message?" Sam wondered.  
"I'm in high school. It's just some jerk, I'm sure," Cheri said.  
"A hate message," Stacie clarified. "Cheerio, I'm sorry but when people have gone through what we've gone through, we can't just brush off a message like what I read and the person had obviously messaged you before, from what he typed."  
"What the hell did he type?" Dwight asked, ready to beat the hell out of somebody.  
Stacie shook her head apologetically at Cheri and answered, "Calling her and the baby racist names and threatening to hurt her worse than Stevie did... but calling him something else, too. This person said You can keep ignoring me all you want. They have been doing this to you and you didn't tell us?"  
Cheri laughed and stood up, "I don't owe any of you anything. I appreciate the help with Stefan and I really am grateful to you, Miss Babydoll for everything that I said - but I don't have to tell any of you anything. It's difficult enough to try to deal with this on my own. I know getting you people involved will just lead to more drama. If anything, that's probably what they want. I'm not going to play into it."  
"Cheri, if something happens to you or Cowboy..." Sam started, but she snapped at him.  
"And you! I don't even know you. Why are you speaking, right now?" She asked. "You aren't my sis, Stacie. You aren't my homegirl, Miss Babydoll. You aren't Papa Evans, the patriarch of Cowboy's bloodline... so... I mean... you think because at some point in time you were some kind of brother to Cornflake that your opinion counts? If anything, your voice is the last one that I would listen to," she fussed.  
"Don't talk to him like that!" Mercedes snapped, now, coming around the couch, but Sam caught her arm. "Sam is just trying to think about what's best for you and for Cowboy."  
"Yeah, I forgot that he's the superhero of all things. Please, Mr. Super Sam - come to rescue me from the people that you've brought into my life," Cheri said. She rolled her eyes. "Welcome back, Enjoy your party. I'm leaving," she said and headed for the playpen.  
"You're out of your mind if you think we're lettin' you just leave moments after you passed out," Dwight said. "Everybody, let Cheri and I talk." She folded her arms and shook her head, fighting back tears. Sam guided Mercedes out of the room and Stacie left, sadly. She didn't like the thought of fighting with Cheerio or her being upset, but that message was too much to brush off. The others needed to know. She obviously needed some help with it. She would NEVER forget seeing that message: _**You can ignoring me all you want, but you know you can't escape me. I'll split you open, you nigger whore and throw your little halfbreed mutt in the trash behind the crazy house your nigger-lovin, racetraitor babydaddy's in.**_  
She sniffled and grabbed herself a plate. If anybody came near Cowboy or Cheerio, she'd try to kill them, but she couldn't help her friend if she refused to let people in. Stacie elected to simply talk to her later.


	5. The Remnant

**The Remnant**

Dwight sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "I know that you didn't mean anything that you said. You know that we love you and that we're all here for you."  
She retorted, "I know that you hated anybody who looked anything like me until your golden boy brought one of us home. I know that even though you accepted it from Sam that you never approved of me for Stevie..."  
"My approval has nothing to do with... Cheri... You and Stevie had a baby inside of a mental institution. Tell me that it isn't a normal reaction to be leery about such a shaky foundation," Dwight said.  
"I was out by the time he was born," she told him.  
"You were inside when he was conceived. You were 16 and Stevie was 18. You were there to receive help for emotional issues. He was there, as a punishment for a crime that the courts found him guilty of by reasons of insanity. And yes, it does factor in that you are black and he was involved in white supremacy terrorism. There were a lot of things to consider."

Cheerio simply rolled her eyes and ignored his reasons. The fact was that no matter what, Dwight always had Sam's back and never had Stevie's. Stevie had cried to her about it many times and she saw it for herself, after she became familiar with Papa Evans. She adored the man. He was a great help, a great leader and wonderful grandfather... But, she couldn't help but resent him for the way he treated Stevie, even though it was clearly unintentional. "Did you tell him what Stevie wants - what he said, what he thinks? I'll bet you haven't, because those things aren't important to you. You're the reason that Stevie has made the decisions that he's made - the way that you don't love him right. He's so confused about what love and loyalty is supposed to look like, he was willing to settle for whatever it was that he developed with me. I know that issue all too well." She wiped a tear away from her cheek with the back of her hand. "We were lost kids stuffed into a system because our parents never loved us."

"Cheri..."  
"I don't have anything for you, Papa. Just - don't tell Stevie about these messages. That's all I ask."  
Dwight said, obviously, "He'll figure it out when you change your number again."  
"Why do you think I haven't changed it? He's under enough stress. He's trying to get out and see his son, as a free man. I'm not gonna contribute to prolonging that. He deserves better." She placed her hands on her knees and got up. "I'm not telling Stevie about this person and neither are you, because its only going to set him back like it did, before." She clapped once and said, "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry." She walked out and ignored the heads that turned her way when she made it out to the patio. She sidestepped Sam before he could question her condition. As he went inside to meet up with Dwight, she fixed herself a plate. "Oh GAWD, everything looks and smells so good," she said, purposefully ignoring the obvious topic of whether or not she was alright.

"Wow. What was that? Babydoll says she's never known her to do that before," Sam said as Dwight was leaning over the playpen to check on Cowboy. "She usually seems like she's avoiing me or like she doesn't care for me too much, but she really went in on me, like she honestly can't stand me, or something."  
"Cheri is Stevie's gal, Sammy. We both know that even though he is trying, he still has and probably always will have some resentment towards both of us. It would be impossible for him not to show those feelings to somebody that he's been intimate with." Dwight sighed and said, "Which leads me to that thing I wanted to talk to you about. Stevie doesn't want you anywhere near her or the baby. He doesn't want any of us near her."  
"What the hell? Why?" Sam asked.  
"Someone sent him photos of her, dropping Cowboy off and picking him up from daycare. He had her to move out of her apartment, into another one, put all of her possessions in storage and have movers to get it out of storage and bring it to the apartment. This was last month. Since then, he's expected us not to have contact with her, but she needs us and we weren't going to just leave her alone, anyway. We're supposed to be visiting him for Thanksgiving, and he'll be expecting us to be arriving at separate times and in a separate vehicle than her."  
"Why am I just now hearing this?" Sam asked, obviously angry.  
"You were on the road and already not doing well. Doll didn't want to tell you when she next talked to you, after it all went down because you called her in the middle of the night and asked her to sing to you. She said that you sounded like everything was getting to you and she didn't want to stress you out that night. I convinced her to wait until you made it home, and told her that I would talk to you about it and explain why we withheld it from you while you were gone. I knew that you wouldn't have talked to Stevie before then and it was best to allow you to keep your focus on your work..."  
"You convinced... Look, Dad - I love you and I appreciate the fact that you do your best when it comes to being there for Mercedes when I'm gone, but don't ever get things this confused. My communication with her and what we share with and keep from each other is NOT your under your jurisdiction. You have no right to try to convince her of anything. She's just as stressed out, if not more than I am with everything and the last thing that she needs is extra pressure from you or from anybody!"  
Dwight nodded his head. He knew that Sam would be angry with him, but he did what he felt was right. "I understand that. But this was something in regards to helping to protect my son. Mercy's like a daughter to me but Stevie IS my son and he can handle things a lot less than she can, right now."  
"And the solution to helping him to handle things is for everyone to pretend that we are doing exactly what he asked, when we really aren't? Dad - This is too ridiculous. Stevie is an adult."  
"He's still very unbalanced, Sam. I think he needs to feel like he has some hand in their lives. Her responses are probably a result of his wishes. She feels guilty about not cutting off ties with us," Dwight said as he returned to the couch.  
Sam sighed and shook his head. "How have you managed to stay sane this entire time?"  
"I've had to," he said, with a chuckle. Dwight was grateful that Sam seemed to be quickly over the fact that he interfered a bit with Mercedes. Sam was constantly making him proud. "Thankfully, you and Doll are going to be together, now. She hasn't been the same, lately."

Sam stuck a piece of bacon he suddenly just remembered that he had been holding into his mouth and commented, "Yeah - neither have I. It's torture being away from her like that. But, her new assistant, Marley has a huge binder of details for organizing and managing her things, so she'll do well with being her assistant. I wish I had known about that humongous binder when I was her assistant. Rachel had it in storage and nobody realized it was there."

After a while, Clusterfrak came running up to Sam and he checked his watch, "Guess I should take them for a walk. Gonna check on Mercy, then take her babies out, if you wanna come with?"  
"No, I think that I'll just join everyone on the patio. We've been antisocial enough for one gathering," Dwight commented. Sam called for Kissy and she came to him as Dwight gathered Cowboy and Babs out of the playpen and the dogs circled he and Sam on the way out.  
Finn smiled and accepted his daughter, "You have once again read my mind, Mr. E." Dwight smiled and took a seat right next to Stacie, who was toying around in Joe's ridiculous hair. "Yeah, there's quite a few of them that need touching up and I can totally do it. I did weave, braids and locks for extra cash when we were in Kentucky."  
"How much do you charge?" Joe asked softly, glancing cautiously at Dwight's grimace as he moved his seat away from Stacie's slightly.  
"Don't be ridiculous, Joe. I'm not gonna charge you. We're too good for that," she told him and patted his shoulder.  
Joe smiled slightly and faced Dwight. "What did you think of the service, Mr. Evans?"  
Dwight smiled back, but had to fight off another grimace when he saw Stacie's blue eyes twinkle at Joe. He bit back his annoyance and politely answered, "It was great. I thank you for inviting me. Your knowledge of the Bible is excellent for someone your age. How old are you again?"  
"24," Joe answered.  
"24," Dwight repeated. "Yeah - that's about 6 years older than Stace," Dwight commented and glanced her way to see her fumble with her fingers and throw him an awkward smile. "I'd say that's a young age to have such knowledge, but this girl has been Bible savvy since she was about 12. She's always had this ridiculously great understanding of it."  
"She impresses me with that, as well," Joe admitted with a smile in Stacie's direction. "God has been preparing you for something great." Dwight now openly frowned at the eye contact between his.. well, yes adult daughter, but his baby girl, still - who was six years younger than this.. well nice, polite, caring, good man, but still not good enough for his baby girl. And too old for her, too, Dwight decided.

Sam wrapped his hands around Mercedes' middle and she shivered at the tingles his touch caused, drawing a smile from him as he whispered in her ear, "Gonna take the babies for a walk. Cluster is getting antsy."

She smiled and said, "He's getting playful in his old age."  
"Mmm hmm... So... think we could go for a drive later? I kinda want to just spend some time alone, and we haven't had much since I got back," Sam said.  
"Sounds great," she said, but something in her voice was off.  
"You don't really want to?" he asked.  
"It isn't that. I definitely want to. We'll talk later," she said. Sam sighed and made his way off with the dogs. Mercedes felt Tina's hand rub her lower back and she offered a polite smile. Tina noticed that it was a sad one and she sighed, herself. Whatever was happening between Sam and Mercy was not something that she wanted to have to watch. They had to talk soon, but today was a good day. A happy day, surrounded by family. Tina reached across the table and squeezed Quinn's hand. Quinn looked up at her with a confused expression, then to Mercedes' sudden quietness and retrieved her hand. She didn't want to get involved.

Quinn sighed as Beth held up something else to her, wanting to add it to the basket. She gently removed it from the girl's hand and studied it, "Beth, you do not need all of this sugar. You know that you'll have loads of candy come Halloween time and I'd like to keep you from it, until then. Plus, once Thanksgiving comes around, you'll have pies and cakes, then Christmas cookies. No, Sweetie. You don't need this. Put it away." She waited as Beth rushed to return the candy, with a frown on her face. She heard the girl mumble something under her breath and called out, "You'd better be singing something to yourself, because if that's sass, young lady, you will be grounded."  
"Why, that's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Quinn heard someone ask. She turned to see Terri and rolled her eyes. "Wait, wait, wait... Quinn. Why have we gotten to this point? There is no reason that we can't be cordial with each other in a supermarket, is there?"  
"Yeah - there is. You and your husband terrorized my loved ones, killed my child's father, and my best friend's sister, and you tried to kill Mercedes' dogs!" Quinn snapped.  
"I did no such thing. IF anyone harmed those precious animals, I had nothing to do with it. I had nothing to do with any of it. How is your daughter? She's gotten so big, now. It seems not too long ago, you were considering donating her to my ex-husband and I."  
"Yeah, well... that was years ago and at the time, I thought that you were good people, because Emma seemed to love you. I even neglected the fact that you were friends of my father, because let's face it - he had hundreds of friends and I assumed that they couldn't all be like him."  
"I think she's what, like... eight now? Seven?" Terri asked, looking at Beth.  
"Bitch, you don't get to threaten me or my daughter. I know how you work - just mentioning and asking about people to indicate who you'd be willing to hurt, but if I see you anywhere near her, Detective Cooper Anderson will not rest until you're in cuffs. You know that he could find something, somewhere that ties you into the mess."  
"You wish that he could," Terri said. "I was simply adoring your daughter. You can't even tell that she's tainted with killer Jew," Terri said. Quinn didn't think. She reacted. And that meant that her fist was in Terri's lip before any rationale could be formed. She winced and shook her hand off, knowing that she'd just failed a test. Terri was baiting her. Terri knew that Puck hadn't killed Jesse and the slight against him and against Beth just was Quinn's last straw with the woman.  
Terri smirked and pulled out her phone, "I am going to call the police on you."  
"You should do that, and while you're at it, you should move away from me, before I convince myself to keep swinging, since you'll press charges, regardless," Quinn said. She was not much of a fighter, before. But, after everything went down, she learned that she might have to throw a few punches, sometimes. She turned to see Beth staring at her with wide blue eyes and she reached out for her hand and headed for the checkout lines. "Sorry you had to see that, Sweetie."  
"What happened?" Beth asked.  
"Mommy doesn't like bad people and I acted like one of them when I saw one," Quinn said.  
One day, she would be able to tell her daughter the entire story, from start to finish. OF COURSE, insisting that her father had been framed for murder, though she wouldn't tell her that her Godmother's husband was the one who did it. But, now, Beth was simply a seven year old girl who had already gone through too much and Quinn would do everything in her power to keep her from going through more.

"So, I might be faced with some charges," Quinn told Judy as they put away the groceries. Judy Fabray, her biological mother poured herself a glass of wine. "On a Sunday night, Mom?" Quinn eyed it and shook her head, "Really?"  
"If God is paying any attention to us, at all - I think that He's doing it at all times, not just Sunday." The woman winked at her daughter and took a sip.  
"Yes, but you could at least try to care about it for one day," Quinn said.  
"Always the judge, just like..." Judy shut up before she said something that she would regret, something that might make Quinn punch her in the face, next. Judy knew that if she finished that statement with 'your father,' Quinnie might just hit her with the wine bottle. "Just like me," she lied and took a sip. Quinn felt her face redden. Amending things with her mother had been bittersweet.  
While she tried to remember that she loved the woman, once upon a time, it was always tainted by the memory of the man that they shared for so long. Plus, Judy had a bad way of dwelling on him.  
"Well, its hard to unlearn years of bad habits, but trust me - at least I'm working on it," Quinn said and snatched the bottle of wine from her mother, "This isn't even supposed to be in the house. If Beth sees it, she'll freak out. Try to be considerate. Her father died of alcohol poisoning and one of the last times she saw him, he was drunk." She tossed the bottle into the trash and Judy rushed to fetch it out and stuff it into her purse. "Mom, if Beth sees that..."  
"She won't!" Judy snapped. The woman ran a hand through her hair and said, "He keeps sending me letters. He doesn't know my current address, so he sends them to the foundation. He seems like he's trying to change..."  
"You already know that if you even dare suggest me forgiving him then you will be asked to stay the hell out of my life," Quinn said and slammed the refrigerator door.  
"On a Sunday night, Quinn? Really?" Judy mocked and moved to take another sip of her wine, but Quinn snatched it from her and threw it into the sink, breaking the glass, as she did.  
"You've had enough. I don't allow drunk people around Beth and if you continue drinking, there will not be a place here for you, in the future. I am not interested in your pity party, I won't be a part of you self destructing, and if you think that either of those things will be exposed to my daughter, you've got another thing coming. Disappointment and solitude, for starters. I have worked TOO HARD to make sure that Beth doesn't have to sink in hardship having the genes that she has!" Quinn rested her hands on her kitchen counter and said, "I went into a mental institution as a teenager. Escaped and made my way alone. I was in and out of court my early adulthood in order to get cleared, so that I wouldn't have to be in an institution again. Worked and went through college, with a baby. Tried to raise her free from all the shit that my parents inflicted upon me and balance that out with trying to rectify that I hurt my best friend." She turned and faced her mother, still holding her hand as though the glass was in it, with widened blue eyes.  
"Mom, I was going to just hand Beth over to the Schuesters, because I thought that she might have a better life with them. I thought that Mercedes and Tina would always be reminded of my betrayal if I kept her - that I would always be reminded of it. I thought that Dad would find us and hurt her. I thought a lot of things. But, I still changed my mind at the last minute and I have spent every day since then trying to make sure that I do right by her. I almost handed her over to Nazis! I am the reason that her father was murdered. I will never be careless with her again. I know that these things don't mean much to you, but my daughter's happiness and safety is the most important thing in my life. I don't want to talk about him with you and I certainly have no use of talking to him. The last time I did, I lost everything that I loved, except for Beth. I won't risk my friends again. I won't risk my heart again. Russell Fabray will never have power over me again. Stop letting him have it over you."  
Quinn took Judy's hand and settled it on the island counter. Then, went back to the sink. "I'm going to get started on dinner. Cooper's not going to be here until much later, but I told Beth that since I didn't let her have any candy that I would make her a small smores pie, to go with her dinner. You want one?"  
"No, thank you," Judy said. Quinn turned on the water, then turned it off and rushed to give her mother a hug. The older woman broke into tears and said, "I did care about you. I cared about you and Frannie. I just didn't know how to help you..." Quinn wanted to tell her that she should have done whatever it took - that that's precisely what she does everyday as a mother, and had done even when Puck was still alive.  
Instead, she said, "Don't even mention it. You've made mistakes like everyone else. I just... I can't have that man in mine nor Beth's life. You'll have to respect that."

Sam and Mercedes rode out to the lake and he set up camp for them. She was cold, but Sam would warm her up, soon enough. They were beside the fire when he said, "So... dad told me about the stuff with Stevie. Is that what was bothering you when I invited you to take a ride with me?"  
She shook her head, "No. I mean, that's bothered me, certainly. I don't like secrets, but it also seemed like it wasn't my place to tell you something like that, when it meant so much to Dwight." She sighed, "I'm glad that he told you, though. It's been hard to live this way. I feel like so much of what we do is a lie. I think that sometimes, I'm going to suffocate in all of it. Lying to Stevie, lying to the world..." She shivered and snuggled into her blanket. "I've never been a dishonest person, not on purpose, anyway. All the lies I've ever told were lies that I believed, myself and all the secrets that I've ever kept protected my loved ones and my heart." She whispered, "Jake's presence has made me extremely guilty about what happened to Puck."  
He frowned, blinked, reflexively shook his head to shake himself out of his stupor and asked, "Our current problems have to do with Puck?"  
"No. MY currents problems have to do with Puck. I... Sam, he was one of my best friends, and I have let him be blamed for a murder that he didn't commit for reasons that he wouldn't have committed it, even if he was capable of it. My goddaughter is gonna have a stigma when she gets old enough to hear about the person that the world thinks her dad was. His sister and mother blame ME for his death and thus the reason that he can't speak in his own defense today against the allegations, and Jake never got the chance to really know him. Puck offered him words of wisdom a couple of times, to try to encourage him to do better in school and not to have so much bitterness and rage and Jake says it helped. That's all that he knew of him and I feel like I've helped to paint the wrong picture of the real Puck..."  
"Would you prefer that I went down for it, instead?" He asked, in a low voice. "I mean... I am the one who did it. You think that I should have accepted responsibility and let Puck rest in peace, without being labelled as a murderer? Do... do you resent me?" He wondered.  
"No. I know that it had to be done, but that doesn't make it any less hard." She wiped her eyes. "I have an appointment tomorrow with the neurologist. I'm going to see about changing my meds. There going to scan to monitor the chemicals in my brain for a more accurate medical treatment." She pulled her legs close to herself and wrapped her arms around them. Sam moved in closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm so sorry that this phase is so troubling. It'll be better, soon and you'll see me smiling and hear me being positive again, in no time."  
"Babydoll, when I fell in love with you and promised you forever, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. When I found out about your condition, I knew that we would have some hard times. But, just like you've been willing to deal with all of the shit that I've brought to the table, I'm here for anything that you think bothers me about you. I love you, forever and always. I wouldn't let anything change that." He kissed her temple and wrapped his other arm around her, as well.  
"Sam, I want to have a life with you, free from all of the problems... But, most of the time... I feel like I am the problem..." She admitted. "I got so used to not being good enough for anybody that I got comfortable there. After all of the excitement of not knowing whether we would live or die settled... I remembered that they leave. That they always leave and I remembered why I stayed alone for so long."  
"You stayed alone for so long because Puck chased off any guy that ever wanted to be with you. I showed you then that I wouldn't easily walk away and I wouldn't do it, now. If you pushed me away, as much as I would want to respect your wishes, it would be impossible for me to walk away!"  
"I love the way that this wood smells burning. We'll have to make sure that we have plenty of it for the fireplace this winter," she said. Sam sighed and cradled her. A hiccup, he told himself. This is simply a hiccup. She said nothing else about her feelings of doubt and her fears. Hopefully a change in meds would do the trick in helping her to stop feeling those things.

Cheerio smiled at the handsome young, redhead as he carted his cousin into the daycare building and held the door for them. He smiled back at her and said, "Why thank you, Miss Charming," he said. She nodded once and reached out a hand to tap the baby's cheek. "Say hey to Miss Charming, Rose." The chubby, curly haired baby just stared wide eyed and smiled at Cheerio, flapping her hands around. "We are gonna have to set these kids up for a playdate, sometime," he said.  
"Well, Cowboy does like older girls," she commented and rocked side to side to wiggle him in the pouch that she wore on her front.  
The guy said, "To be honest, I think that Rose has a huge baby crush on him." He winked a blue eye at Cheerio and she laughed and shook her head.  
After they were done checking the kids in to daycare, he asked, "Do you need a ride somewhere?"  
"I catch the bus," she said with a shrug, heading down the street.  
"Yeah, but my truck is right across the street," he told her. "And, it isn't like I could honestly do something to you when that entire front desk just saw us leave together."  
She checked her cell phone and gave him a smile. "I'll be a little early, but that's good, because I need to talk to my cheerleading coach, anyway. You know where McKinley High is?"  
"Oh, sure. Wait... you attend McKinley?" He asked, to which she nodded. He sighed and laughed at himself, "Well, now I feel like a pervert."  
"Is that so? You can't be more than a couple of years older than me, Max," she said as he helped her into the truck.  
"I'm 19," he said.  
"Yeah - so you've got 2 years on me," she shut the door as he went around. She checked her surroundings. God, she hated how life with the Evanses made her so paranoid that she couldn't even relax around a nice guy that she had seen every morning for the past several months that she had Cowboy in daycare, but her mind just couldn't get over some of the stories that she had heard about how Sam's enemies operated. They could be sneaky.  
Max got in on the other side of the truck and said, "You totally just failed the door test."  
"What's the door test?" She wondered.  
"I let you in, you let me in? A Bronx Tale...?" He said.  
She shook her head, "I'm lost. Isn't that some old Italian mafia movie?"  
"No. It's a love story. Italian kid, colored girl... black girl..." He corrected, blushing.  
"Never watched it, but I think that I've seen it advertised before. It looked like a mafia movie to me and I don't do mafia movies. Actually, I don't care too much for any violence in movies. But, if its a love story, I might check it out."  
"Yeah, especially since..." He shut up and she glared at the side of his face.  
"Especially since what? Because my son obviously has a white or at least a very light skinned dad that means that I just watch everything in which there's some white dude with a black lady?" She asked.  
"I didn't mean to sound that way, but it does seems like there is this trend going around were when people are involved in relationships like that, they celebrate it and yes, like to see couples that look a little more like them on tv and in movies."  
"I don't even like movies. I like shows," she said. "I watch romance and comedies when I watch a movie. I hate dramas. Real life can be depressing enough."  
"Oh, this movie is definitely a drama," he said. "What's your favorite movie?"  
"Bring It On," she said without hesitation. He snorted. "Hey - That movie has become a classic, which I knew it would. My second favorite is Miss Congeniality."  
"You look like one of those pageant types," he said.  
"Ah ha! You know what Miss Congeniality is!" She said.  
"Uh, yeah. I do date girls, so I have to endure the dreaded chick flick here and there," he said.  
When he pulled up to the high school, she smiled and said, "Thank you, so much, Max."  
"Why don't we exchange information, so that if you need a ride, I can help out?" He asked.  
"Oh, no - it's good. Cowboy's dad's family helps out with rides, most of the time. They're just all tied up this time of morning," she said, reaching for the door.  
"Well, what about arranging the playdate, for the munchkins?" He asked.  
"Oh, the daycare has a program where they do it for you," she informed him, opening the door.  
"Well, how about you're really pretty and I'm running out of excuses to spend more time getting to know you better?" He asked.  
She held the door open and stared at him, for a while before saying, "Um.. I have a lot going on, at home. I mean, with Cowboy's dad and things."  
"Oh... I thought you said that you weren't together. Did y'all reunite?" He asked.  
"Um.. well, no - but, we still have to deal with each other and I still have other stuff to deal with."  
"Fair enough. Sorry if I came on strong there. Figured, I might not get this chance again."  
"Well, we'll see. I may need a ride tomorrow," she said, shrugged her shoulders and got out of the truck. Max smiled at her and watched her head for the school entrance before pulling away. Cheerio smiled to herself as she went inside of the school and watched for his truck to pull away, so that she could get the license plate on it. One could not be too careful, when she had people threatening her safety. Plus, she had a son to think about.

Terri sat in her office, still decorating it in her own way, and when she heard the tiny knock, she looked up. "Oh - hello!" She cheered, peppily. She seemed nice enough, but the family had already warned her that the woman would seem nice. She was pretty, blond, chipper.. just like Coach Dystra had been, but Coach Dystra had gotten a job being a pageant coordinator, and would probably never look back. Cheerio would miss her. They had so much in common and loved so much of the same things. She had no idea how to take Coach DelMonico.  
"Hey, Coach. I just wanted to come in and see you and touch base with you," Cheerio said.  
"Well, then - have a seat!" Terri cheered and sat down in her own seat.  
"It looks like a totally different room in here," Cheerio observed. When her eyes returned to Terri, she noticed that the woman had a busted lip. Knowing better than to get into the woman's business about what happened, she cleared her throat and said, "I wanted to apologize about the situation that happened at the Fire Safety Fair. Had I realized the history, I would not have tried to get the cheerios involved in the event."  
"Oh, Cheri - don't you worry about that. The history is ugly, I will give you that, but I want you to know that I am here in order to be your cheerleading coach. There will be no reason for any of the history between my husband's family and your... family to be drudged up. With that being said, I am glad that you stepped up to the plate and showed true leadership in the couple of weeks that the team was without a coach."  
"Thank you, Coach," she said.  
"Now, I only ask that when you deal with me, there will be no bad blood between us. There's no need. Your family feels like my husband betrayed them, well, they have no idea what betrayal is. Betrayal is being married to a man and discovering that his entire life and the life that you had with him was all a lie. Betrayal is waking up one day, after years and years of luxury to barely being able to afford food for yourself, much less for your firstborn child. I had to give my daughter up. I lost the man that, even though he lied to me - I loved and had a life with. But, I understand that most people look at a situation like mine and they think that I couldn't possibly have been in the dark about his business..." Her eyes were tearing up, so Cheerio grabbed a packet of tissues from her gym bag and handed her a couple. "Thank you."  
Terri took a deep breath and said, "We really don't choose who we fall in love with. We choose who we give our love to. I haven't seen Will in almost two years, but do you think that people care about that? They are much quicker to brush me aside with the rest of the rubbish. I was fortunate that the school even hired me, so I'm used to situations like what happened at the Community Center." She pointed to her lip and said, "You were too tasteful to as, but yeah - this was from one angry Quinn Fabray." Cheerio winced at the mention of the name an Terri simply nodded her head. Her hand covered Cheri's and she said, "You don't need to feel bad."  
Cheerio felt even worse looking at Terri, in that state. This was uncomfortable. She hated seeing people cry and she hated it even more, because she was having a hard time seeing the person that the others warned her about, but they had warned that it would be difficult. She cleared her throat and said, "I'm sorry about your daughter." Terri simply offered her a small smile. "Well, I intend to continue being the best Head Cheerleader that I know how to be and I will help you with whatever you need to help keep this team a championship squad."  
"That's all I ask, Dear. Thank you," Terri said, tossed her tissues and began to continue decorating. "Was there anything else?" She wondered as she reached into one of her boxes.  
"No. You have a good day," Cheerio said and left. Terri looked at her leave. She seemed like a sweet young lady. It was a shame that she got mixed up with Sam Evans and the gang. She would be safe, otherwise, Terri said and took a cell phone out of her purse. She sent a text with it and threw it back inside of the purse, next to her actual cell phone.  
Halfway down the hall Cheerio checked her own phone and saw another text.** Good Morning, you black bitch. Better hope that today is not the day that I come for you.** Her breathing became heavy as she deleted it and shoved the thing back into her bag. Fuck that coward! They weren't going to do a thing. They just wanted to wind her up! She felt an arm cross her shoulders and she shoved whoever DARED into a locker. "Whoa! Whoa! Calm it, Cheerio!" Jake. She sighed and saw Terri come out of her office.  
"Everything alright down there?" She asked, looking at Cheri, all rattled and that confused Puckerman kid. She shook her head, half Jew, half Nigger. She didn't know which part of him to dislike more. Cheri placed her hands onto her forehead and rushed away.  
"Cheerio! Cheri!" Jake called, holding his hands out, still clearly confused. As Terri went back into her office, she grinned. _ She_ wasn't confused, and she didn't feel the least bit bad about the text that she had just sent the girl.**  
**


	6. The Revamp

**The Revamp**

Getting the news shocked and upset Mercedes.. that she had been getting the wrong medication now, possibly for a while. "It isn't that you never needed the medication that you've been taking. Its simply that you've been more anxious lately than depressed and obviously, you've still been taking medicine for depression. This has made you more anxious."  
… The panic attacks and sleepless nights were caused by what was supposed to help her to get rid of them. Now, she would have to be weaned off of those, while introduced to something else. "So, what, are these going to counter each other?"  
"No. You'll get a reduced dosage of your medication and add in another, to help you to deal with what you actually need help with. These are to help balance you out, Ms. Jones," the doctor had told her. Her prescriptions were called in and she left the neurologist's office silently.

Mercedes entered the gift shop with the dogs in front of her and Sam behind her. Stacie was at the custom gifts counter, working on pumpkin carvings. April and Unique were working the downstairs registers - which was more of them sipping on pumpkin spice tea and arguing over which one of them could sing "Home" better. There were very few customers in the building and it was raining outside.  
Dottie and Brittany were setting up a planogram upstairs for unique winter gifts as Becky sat at her computer, entering special orders into the system. Santana was signing some paperwork for some shelving that had been ordered for the new winter displays. But, when Mercedes entered the place, everyone became instantly happier and spoke from wherever they were. Sam smiled. His woman always brightened any room, even on a stormy day. He wrapped an arm around her middle and kissed the side of her head as he placed the wet umbrella they'd shared aside.  
April came rushing forward to take the dogs, "Lil' Stacie is working her little hiney off on those pumpkin carving orders, so I'll take these precious babies to their playroom for you and get them settled in with some lunch."  
"I take it that it isn't a busy day," Mercedes said with a bright smile as she allowed the woman to have the leashes.  
"Mostly orders on today. Nobody really wants to get out into all of this weather," April suggested as she headed away with Cluster and Kissy, towards the back room.  
Unique appeared next to Mercedes with a textured mug of hot drink and said, "I got you some hot eggnog with marshmallows, whipped cream and white chocolate, Bebe."  
"Oooh," Mercedes said, accepting it with both hands and feeling on the mug to feel the sculpted building on the side of it with her fingers as she took a sip. She smiled even brighter, "Mmmm... that's so good, Girl. Thank you." Unique smiled brightly at Sam, pleased with herself. He offered her an awkward smile in return, but always felt a bit off around her. She was constantly being compared to Mercedes, and while Sam was not nearly as homophobic as he had been in the past, he still didn't know how to feel about this... woman, who to him was a man dressed like a woman... being compared to a woman that he was with... like, a lot.

Mercedes went to the bar and Unique returned to the counter. "Now I need a big bowl of potato soup," Mercedes mused, with a smile.  
"I'll call in an order," Santana said. "Everybody write down what you want from Breadsticks." Unique grabbed a notepad and began to write, then hopped on the phone, calling each extension to ask them, as well. She had the best handwriting, so she usually just took up responsibility. "Gonna be a late night," Santana said as she leaned on the bar, next to Mercedes. "We finally got that shipment in."  
"Well, I have to go pick up something this afternoon, but I'll definitely be back to help out," Mercedes told her.  
"You know that we've got this, Girl. I'm going to provide lunch and dinner for everyone. Unique is going to give April a ride home. Brittany and Dottie are already setting up fixtures upstairs, which they can help Becky to fill after they finish. Between me, Unique, April and Stacie, we'll get all this done without you having to stress about it."  
"Stacie has to work on those pumpkins, though. You can't rush her. Maybe Rachel won't mind coming in and helping out."  
"That won't be necessary, Mercy. Goodness, calm down. I was just mentioning that we'll be here a little later than usual. Not like until the rising of the sun or anything."

Sam hung out at the counter, -watching Stacie as she worked. "How you do things like that will never fail to amaze me." She chuckled, but didn't respond as she continued working. "How is Cheerio?" He wondered.  
"She's not saying much to me, but I know that something's wrong..." Getting flustered with the issue, she changed the subject, "Whoever wanted to have the Wizard of Oz carved into a pumpkin should be kicked in the butt. This is literally the hardest pumpkin carving that I have ever done."  
"If it helps - It looks totally awesome," he told her. "So.. Babydoll had an appointment to see about changing up her meds to something that better helps her out, since she seems to be having issues, even though she's always medicated. They've been treating the wrong stuff. She thought that she was depressed, but she was actually manic and they've been making it worse. I'll need you to help me keep an eye on her, because we both know that she'll flip out if she thinks I'm being overprotective."  
"She's gonna have to get over it. She has to get over it. Cheerio has to get over it. Everybody just has to go ahead and get over themselves long enough to let us be a goddamned family! It's our jobs to be overprotective!" She set her carving tool down and took a deep breath. "Break time? Break time," she said.

They joined Mercy at the bar. "What you drinking, Mercy?" Stacie asked.  
"The Devil's drink!" She answered. "Girl, this egg nog is so good that it HAS to be some kind of sin. Unique has a recipe for hot eggnog that she wanted me to try, because we're reopening the bar for the winter... GIRL! It is amazing, and she added some white chocolate lacquer to it for me, put some marshmallows on the top, whipped cream and white chocolate shavings on top of that."  
Stacie's eyes widened, "I need some, for reasons," Stacie said.  
Mercedes called out, "Unique! Can you make more of this stuff for us, please, Ma'am?"  
"I sure can!" Unique cheered, finalizing another debate with April with a "stop hand" lifted to the woman's face. "Girl, you couldn't sing A House is Not a Home better than me on your best day when I'm ill and broken."  
"Rachel is going to make them have a diva off, if they don't cut this out," Mercedes said, chuckling.  
Santana called out from behind the counter, which she was digging under, "They'd be like that episode of Martin when Pam and Gina were trying to be background singers for Biggie Smalls."  
Unique quickly said, "Yeah - but I sing better than both of them, so we know who would win this. I don't even know why this has become a thing."  
"EGGNOG!" Stacie yelled and pounded her fist on the counter of the bar.  
"Oooh, uhuh!" Unique declared as she rushed over.  
"I think I wanna open the bar early. I could use one of these like everyday this week," Mercedes said. "I seriously think that I might open it up on Halloween. Its already settled in my mind that Unique is gonna be running the bar. I can always help April ring up customers if we get busy. OR we could finally get Brittany's trained on the register..."  
Before Sam knew it, it was time to close the building for lunch. He closed the curtains and locked the door. Santana was issuing out food orders. Unique was serving up hot drinks, and the chatter was comfortable and light-hearted. Sam looked at Mercedes, with her bright smile as she laughed out loud at Unique and April.  
April was saying loudly, "You've stepped in it now, Missy. Someone turn on the karaoke CD!"  
Santana furrowed her eyebrows and asked, "Can you wait until after folks eat?"  
Unique was already heading for the CD player, though. Santana shook her head and handed Sam his order. He went to sit on the stairs and watched the ladies, amused at the singing contest between the friends and the rest of the reactions. Stacie and Mercedes were making comments to each other back and forth and laughing. Family. That was a part of his family. A special part. Now, he just needed his Mercy back. He needed her to be herself. He would love her, at any rate, but he always wanted what was best for her.

Starting off was... complicated. For a few days, she felt entirely too unstable... like - she had never felt so up and down before, and if she ever had - it had been too long ago for her to remember the feeling. Getting out of the bed was a chore the next day. Sam had been up and about, had prayed, read his Bible, exercised, took the dogs for their walk, got home, washed up and got dressed before she even moved. She had literally been awake as long as he had, too. "Babydoll, I was thinking that we might go have breakfast and maybe see about getting you some new audio books today. How's that sound?" He asked her as she made her way for the bathroom.  
"Sounds beautiful, Sam."  
"I did all of the morning assistant stuff, but I think that come Monday, we can get Marley here and start trying to get her used to the program."  
"Mmm hmm... Monday works for me," She said from the bathroom. She felt for her pill case and wondered if Sam had properly prepared them, since her format had changed. "These pills are correct, huh?" She asked.  
"Yes, I did them last night before I came to bed," he said, walking into the room as well. "I am spending every single moment that I'm here taking care of you."  
She smiled his way and said, "Thank you, Mr. Amazing." Sam smiled and left her to get herself together.

They went to Emma's where Emma was chopping wood in her backyard, letting out these cries of attack, as she did. Mercedes asked, "What in heaven's name?"  
"She's chopping some wood," Sam said, watching Emma cautiously.  
"She shouldn't be doing that," Mercedes said.  
"Emma!" He called and waved at her. She smiled brightly and drove the ax into a log before coming over to meet them. Sam watched her hurrying over with a bright smile. "You look like you're in high spirits today," he said. Her personality these days was much gloomier than when he initially met her.  
"Yes. I'm having a party. It will start at 8, you two, by the fireplace. Bring something orange or red to eat," she said. "Shannon's going to come, too; and she might stay the night."  
"She might stay the night?" Sam repeated. Mercedes tensed up at this and Sam immediately saw why...  
Emma's face became tortured as she said, "Shannon hasn't slept here in a while. I don't know if she thinks I don't notice or that I can't remember, but a lot of her stuff is gone and a lot of my stuff that was in her place is now here..." Sam bit his lip and shook his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets with a sense of shame. "But!" Emma cheered, "She's going to be here tonight."  
"That's really good news," Mercedes said, "But, I'm going to get someone else to chop that wood for you so that you can work on the food."  
"Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll get washed up and make some rotisserie chickens the way that Shannon likes them." She hurried off, excitedly, like a child.  
"I can help you with something..." Mercedes began, but noticed, "She ran off, didn't she?"  
"Yes," Sam answered. She looked pretty stoked. I didn't realize that things had gotten like that between them."  
"Scary, huh?" Mercedes said. "There they were, for all of those years, better or worse, without the papers. Emma has an unfortunate attack that leaves her forever changed and now... There's nothing that guarantees that they'll pull through this together. Everything points at them NOT doing so." She wrapped her arms around herself and sadly made her way towards the house. Sam followed her, suddenly not really wanting to be here. The rain had slacked up and it was dry out enough to do something, but Emma obviously didn't need to be left alone. How the hell had she gotten an axe? "I think that Rachel will be around soon. She has some family stuff to run around and plan for today and I volunteered to watch Babsy."  
"No problem, Babe. You know that I always jump at the chance to hang out with kids and babies," Sam answered.  
"Please don't start this," Mercedes said.  
"Start what, Babe?" He asked. She simply sighed. Sam fought off an eye roll, even though she couldn't see it. He knew what she meant - 'Don't start talking about children, because you know that I don't want to talk about them because I don't want to have them with you, even though I know that you want them with me more than anything...' Accept, she would never say it that way - that was simply what he heard when it came up. "Wonder what kind of stuff Rachel has going on," he said, in an effort to change the subject.  
"Her mother is in town and they're planning on having some kind of Thanksgiving thing with her and her family, Finn's family, so Kurt and Blaine, too, and just have a really great entire family time. They don't get to do much of it and with Babs being so young, Shelby wants to be able to be there with her, since she didn't really give herself the chance to be a mom to Rachel."  
"I didn't realize that she had a mom. I mean - of course I knew that she did, but I didn't think that they interacted or anything. I don't think I've ever heard her mention a mom before."  
"She met her in her senior year of high school and went to New York to go to school so that she could get to know her during her college experience. They talk, but they aren't like that close. I think that now that Rach is a mom, though - she wants to have all of Babs' grandfolk in her life."  
"That's a good thing. So, I guess that Rachel and Finn nor Kurt and Blaine will be around here for Thanksgiving, then..." Sam wondered.  
"Oh, Kurt and Blaine will most definitely stop by, but they'll probably spend most of their time there. They also have to go to the Andersons' gathering. Rachel wanted to try to get them ALL together, but the Andersons didn't want to do that. Quinn will be having her first Thanksgiving with them, so I'm glad that they won't be all together. I know that Quinn and Rachel get along now and Finn and Quinn have long since gotten over the stuff between them, but it still might be awkward for her to spend a holiday with the family that she spent so many Thanksgivings with as a teenager and stuff, the guy that she cheated on, her daughter and her boyfriend," Mercedes said.  
Sam shook his head and said, "I had completely forgot that Finn is Quinn's ex that she cheated on."  
"I remember when Puck used to always say that somebody should make show about all of us. He had no idea that somebody ever would!" She said with a smile, which ffaded into a sad grin.  
"I'm sure that he's somewhere, happier than he's ever been, wishing that y'all could be happy, too." Sam answered. She reached for his hand and stroked it with her thumb, as they sat in silence for a while.

Cheerio and Jake were walking through the supermarket, with him pushing the cart with Cowboy's seat on it. Correction, Jake was walking, but he paused yet again when he saw that Cheri had stopped at something else that she didn't have on her list. "So... why do you make a list?" He wondered.  
"So that I won't forget what I NEED - not so that I can't get stuff that I WANT. Hush up," she told him.  
"I have to have my mom's car back to the house at a certain time," he reminded her.  
"In three hours," she reminded him. "Trust me, it will not take that long." She laughed and threw her stuff into the half full basket.  
"Excuse me... aren't you a friend of Sam Evans?" A woman asked.  
"No," Jake and Cheerio said simultaneously.  
"I thought that I've seen you with his sister," the woman said. "I'm one of the area photographers. I simply wanted to give him a business card, so that he might allow me some shots to help me with my..."  
"Miss... we are not any friends of Sam Evans. Sam Evans is a Nazi," Jake said, and collected Cheri's hand as he pushed the cart with his other hand.  
"He's reformed, is he not?" The woman asked.  
Jake told her, "I really couldn't care less." Cheerio walked with Jake, eyeing the woman suspiciously.  
"We can't leave the store," she said.  
"What do you mean?"  
"She might follow us. She might be an enemy," Cheri said and went back towards the woman.  
"Why would do go to the enemy?" Jake asked under his breath.  
"Miss - Actually, it's true that I'm not friends with Sam Evans, but yes - I know his sister. If you want to leave that card with me, you can," Cheri told the woman.  
"Oh! Thank you!" She cheered in excitement as she reached into her bag for one of the cards. "I appreciate this!" She held out the card and Cheri took it with the ends of her fingers.  
"Alright. Have a good day Miss Dean." Cheri tucked the card into a little plastic sleeve in her wallet as she returned to Jake.  
"Okay. Forgive me if I'm confused..." He said.  
"If I have suspicions about somebody, which - I have suspicions about EVERYONE, I get whatever info I can on them and I give it to Joe. Joe has a friend that specializes in researching stuff and if there's anything on the person, this guy finds it."  
"Oh yeah? He ever look into Sam Evans?" Jake asked.  
"Maybe. I'm sure that I wouldn't be able to get Joe to get the guy to look into him, but why would you even ask that? Sam is a lot of things. I don't like him, to be honest. But, he IS in the public eye most of the time and there's not really a lot that he could hide. What are you wondering about?" She wondered.  
"I don't... Can I trust you, Cheri? I mean - like really?" He asked, pausing in place. She folded her arms, getting an eerie feeling as to where this conversation was going, but folded her arms and nodded her head. "My brother reached out to me when he was inside of the rehabilitation center. His mom wasn't really speaking with him, because she wanted to wait until he got better. He wasn't allowed to see his daughter, because her mom was worried that she was too young to grasp everything that was happening and his best friend slash love of his life had moved on and wasn't speaking to him, at all."  
Cheri nodded, "Yeah?"  
"So, he reached out to who he could. Shane. Joe... and me. We communicated more in the time that he was in the center than we ever had in life. He was going to do a lot of things to change his life. He hadn't been drinking in years, but aside from that, his relationships with the people who should have been closest to him were lacking substantially. He talked to me about Sam Evans... a lot. He told me things that he said that he couldn't prove, but knew for a fact were true and he wanted me to look after Mercy if anything happened to him. He also told me that if anything DID happen to him, Sam Evans would be responsible. The moment that I found out that he was dead, I knew that Sam had something to do with it."  
"Hey, now... that's a very bold accusation, Jake," Cheri said.  
"He is a proven murderer. It's not THAT bold of a statement."  
"Jake, I can't see..." Cheri started, but couldn't finish her statement when he began to push the cart again and snapped at her.  
"Lets just finish your shopping so that I can take you home!"  
Cheri looked at the photo of the blond with a bemused grin as her phone buzzee and answered, sorrowfully, trying to sound chipper. "Cornflake!"  
"What's wrong?" He immediately asked, sounding worried.  
She sighed and said, "Jake and I had an argument earlier... well.. not so much an argument. He was saying something that I couldn't support and he got mad, so.. I think he's not talking to me. I don't know..."  
Stevie winced when she started talking about her new friend. He hated hearing about the guy - even though she said that he wasn't her boyfriend, he knew that whatever he was, there was something between them and it made his blood boil. He knew that they couldn't be together and he wanted her to be happy, but he still hated when he had to hear about other guys that had the fortune to see her everyday and hug her and possibly kiss her and if he thought of somebody else doing much more with her, he might punch a wall, so he didn't think too deeply on it, when he could help it. "He'll get over it. As soon as he's had a chance to sit down and think about the fact that he shut YOU off, he'll come crawling back."  
"It's not really that simple," she said and groaned.  
"Talk to me, Captain. You know that you can," he said.  
"I know... It's actually..." she took a deep breath. "He thinks that Sam was involved in his brother's death."  
"He wasn't," Stevie quickly said.  
"I know. I tried to tell him, but he got so mad. I know that coming from me, he can't take it seriously."  
"You do know that I was in the loop on that arrangement, right?" He asked. She didn't answer, so he continued, "Well, I was. Sam had no idea. I know that I'm gonna sound like the jealous ex lover, but... I don't think that you should spend more time around that kid." She grunted. "I know how it sounds, but Captain - this guy thinks that your kid's uncle had something to do with his brother getting killed, and he probably has no iea that you aren't in contact with Sammy. I don't want him using you two to exact misplace revenge. So, its for the best if he has stopped talking to you."  
"Its like the loneliest place in the world out here, Cornflake. Cowboy can't talk back with me, you don't want me around your family, my family doesn't want me around them..." He heard her sniffle, "I miss you. I miss having my best friend there to argue with and talk with and laugh and cry face to face!"  
"I'll see you soon, Cheri," he said, gently. She was hardly ever "Cheri." She was Cheerio to absolutely everyone and when she said she was going to tryout for captain of the cheerios, he had been calling her Captain ever since. She broke into tears and he sighed, feeling the pain in his chest. He hated when she cried, even to this day. That killed him inside, "Please don't do this. I wish that I could be there for both of you, but I am under strict review until that can be accomplished. I killed somebody, and they want to be sure before they even consider letting me out that it won't likely happen again."  
"I know. I'm just so lonely, Cornflake..." She sobbed, softly. "When I get lonely, you know how I can be. I'm trying so hard to be careful and smart, for Cowboy, but..." She shook her head and said, "I didn't mean to make this phone call all about me. How is the evaluation process going?"  
"Good," he answered and did not expound. Great, I've worried him. "If you meet anyone new - anyone at all, make sure that you have them looked into."  
"I know that. I'm very good about it. I turned over a guy's license plate recently and I have a business card to scan for prints." She wiped her face and tried to make herself sound more upbeat, for his benefit. She hated that some part of her knew that she still did have a very significant effect on him and she credited it to their having a baby together, but some portion of her felt that it was more than that. "I brought some fun holiday socks today!"  
"Oh yeah?" He asked, trying extremely hard himself to sound upbeat, too.  
"They look like black cats. They got tails and whiskers..."  
By the time she hung up with Stevie, promising to come see him for Halloween, so that he could see Cowboy's costume, she did feel genuinely better. Of course, it couldn't last. She saw that she had a text and was afraid to even check it. She didn't want anything making her feel bad for the moment, so she cut off the phone and put it on the charger. She still had to eat and prepare her baby for night night.

Shannon froze when she entered the house and saw all of the people, many around the fireplace, some on the couch and spread out sporadically throughout the room. Her blue eyes widened as she set the box of random things that she had down."So, you decided on this format, I guess..." She said and made her way to Emma, who seemed a bit loopy, holding a mug of eggnog and talking to Rachel, Shelby, Quinn and Tina.

"Oh! Shannon - FINALLY, I was starting to think that you weren't coming to your own party!"  
"It's not exactly a party, Emma... Have you been drinking?" She asked, folding her arms.  
Shelby said, "I'm sorry. I fixed her a mug of eggnog and I didn't realize the stipulations. If it helps, she's been holding that same mug for well over an hour..." Shannon looked at the familiar woman, nodded once, then looked at Emma and reached for the mug. Emma gladly surrendered it and followed Shannon as she went to pour it out. "Is it only awkward to me because I'm not familiar with them?" Shelby asked.  
"No, its certainly awkward," Rachel said, taking a chug of her pumpkin spiced latte.

Tina and Quinn both headed towards the couple, but kept their distance. "That looks like a goodbye box," Tina observed.

Quinn nodded her head and added, "Beiste definitely did not expect for the rest of us to be here. Should we grab Mercy?"  
"I think for now, we let her and Sam enjoy the fireplace," Tina said. They looked over at Mercedes, curled up in Sam's lap in front of the fireplace, with Beth nearby, reading to her and Sam watching Shannon and Emma with concern, but clearly not passing that on to his lady. He made brief eye contact with Tina, then with Quinn, then squeezed Mercedes tightly and buried his face in her hair. Whatever was about to happen, he was not going to witness it. He shut his eyes and inhaled Mercedes' scent mingled with the scent of the wood and various holiday treats and spices drifting through the air...

"You misunderstood what I said," Shannon told Emma, slowly. Emma was smiling brightly, but folded her arms like at any moment she might get upset. "This was not supposed to be a party. I mean - if you want a party, that's great; but, I have a feeling that you simply misunderstood my words."  
"You said that we could all meet up for a get together," Emma stated, plainly, still smiling, but now a bit worried.  
"I said we need to get together and talk and I told you that if you feel better doing so that you could make it like one of your gatherings," Shannon corrected her.  
"Rewording," Emma said with a little shrug.  
"No... Big misunderstanding. I didn't mean like a fun get together. I meant like a group session get together." That did it. Emma's arms dropped and her shoulders slumped. She took a deep breath and her brain started moving too quickly for her understanding to catch up with it. Shannon continued to slowly explain, "Like when the kids have something going on and we invite everyone together for the support to address the issue at hand. You and I need to talk and I was trying to let you know that you might need the kids around..."  
Emma shut her eyes. "Shit," she hissed to herself. "This is a bad thing gathering." Emma took her mug of eggnog back and gulped it down, to Shannon's displeasure. Then, she dropped it to the floor and it shattered.  
"The heck was that?" Mercedes asked, "Did Emma drop something?" She wondered. Sometimes, when Emma zoned out, she might drop whatever she was holding. Quinn rushed to collect the mug pieces as Tina went to see if Emma needed to sit down. Emma simply shook her head repeatedly and shook Tina off, but Tina simply kneeled to help Quinn with the mug. "Anybody gonna answer me?" she heard Mercedes ask Sam.  
"Yeah, she dropped her mug. Quinn's picking it up. Quinn and T have got her, Babe. Don't worry," he said. The looks on the women's faces told him that there was cause for worry, but he would have her avoid it, if he could.

"So, should I send everyone away then?" Emma wondered.  
"No... you might need the gang to hang tight after I go," Shannon told her. Emma's already big eyes widened and she reflexively clenched her teeth together, as she waited for Shannon to say what she had to say. Tina and Quinn took the broken pieces and Tina grabbed a rag for the small drippage on the floor while Quinn fetched Emma some water. Shannon was saying, "I never thought that it would ever come to what its come to between the two of us. You saved my life. You helped me escape Cooter, helped me get some help, helped me heal and grow. You are the biggest portion of my life... But, things between us have changed. I hate how things have turned out, Em, but I can't change them, I can't ignore them and I can't live with them..." Shannon lowered her face to avoid Emma's wide-eyed stare.  
Tina had accidentally gasped, Quinn had began to hold her breath, Sam was stroking Mercy's hair and Shelby and Rachel, the only other two people in the room who were paying any kind of attention to them, were simply staring. When Shannon's eyes finally met Emma's again, Emma's eyes narrowed at her. "With how things have turned out? Just tell it like it is. You can't live with ME! You don't love me anymore, and you haven't for a while!"  
"I am ALWAYS going to love you Emma, with all of my heart..."  
"BULLSHIT!" Emma screamed at the top of her lungs, causing now everyone in the room to look at her. She wasn't even aware of them, though. Of Mercedes insisting that Sam help her to Emma, of an alarmed Beth and shocked Artie, Shane and Lauren. She didn't see everyone string as she continued or Mercedes absentmindedly digging her fingernails into Sam's arm... "Bullshit. They keep on telling me how you were so distraught when you thought that you would lose me. When I was down, you were hurt and sad and promising that you would have waited forever for me to be yours again. I've been told how hard it was for you when I was dying and you weren't allowed to see me. THAT was the love that we knew. Today, you're just as miserable as you were, even though I'm right here. Its like you wish that I would have died!"  
"That is unfair," Shannon managed through avoiding her imminent tears.  
"Oh yeah?" Emma wondered, now unleashing, "Tell me that you've been happier since I woke up! Tell me that I've been a relief to reenter your life and not a burden. You CAN'T - because you've not looked at me the same since I woke up like this! Maybe you resigned yourself to the likelihood of me dying. Maybe it was less painful at the time to write me off as dead already, to not get your hopes up and even though I woke up and I'm here; its like I'm DEAD to you!" Emma was yelling at her.  
"It is," Shannon retorted. Silence fell upon the room as everyone watched the women, now. "I'm so sorry, Emma, but the Emma that I knew and loved is long gone. It isn't your fault, but it isn't mine, either. We can't keep up with the charade that we're both fully fine with how this situation is now for us. Everything is different."  
"I'm not gone. I am here. I'm still here, Shannon..." Emma pleaded, now squeezing both of her companion's hands in her own, silently begging her to feel what she once felt when they did this.  
Shannon said, "When we lost Noah, I thought at first that I would give anything to have him back. That even if he hadn't died, if there was even a glimmer of the kid that I loved so much still there, that I'd be grateful, that it would be worth the world to be able to still have him around to love on, to shoot the shit with and just be there. I miss him so much. I thought that it would hurt less if we still had him, damaged, affected, but alive. I can still do some of the things that I used to with you." Shannon shook their intertwined hands as her proof. "But... it just isn't the same," she said and let go of the shaking hands that wanted to hold on forever. "You're like the ghost of my Emma and even though it hurts us both for me to do this, it just hurts too much to try to continue on. I'm sorry. I can't express enough how sorry I am."  
"You can't leave me, Shannon!" Emma blurted. "We have always said..." Emma's already large eyes widened as she blanked out, grasping desperately for what it was that they always said. There was some statement that they shared, between friends, between lovers. Something that meant that they would never leave each other. "Wait. Wait... Just give me a chance. Give me a moment. I'm upset and the stress is making it hard, but I KNOW that we said... something." The tears freely fell from her eyes, uncontrollably. "It was something, something that meant 'forever - no matter what,' and I can't, I can't remember, but I know that you can and I know that you know..." Emma sobbed and fell to the floor with a loud thump that startled everyone and made them all move. Mercedes managed to reach her first and collected her into an embrace, knowing full well how it felt to collapse into a depressed pile in the presence of others. For Emma, it was new... as was being abandoned by someone that she loved. "It's on the tip of my tongue, Shannon. It's just there. I can barely recall, but I know its there. I know we said forever, somehow... I KNOW we said forever!" She wailed.  
"Will some-damned-body help me to gather her?" Mercedes asked, aggravated. Sam rushed to help Emma up and he and Mercedes took her out of the room, crying loudly.  
"I can't remember. I can't remember..." Emma cried.

As they made their exit, Shannon looked at each of the others left in the room and shook her head. "I'm sorry. You'll never be bothered by me hurting her again. I won't make it any harder for her or any of you. I sold the bar and gave up everything that I have in Lima. I've left Emma with half of everything, just like a proper divorce. All of the records and the very last of her possessions that I still had are all inside of the box. I know how important she is to everyone here and I'm sure you all must hate me, but..."  
"We can't hate you, Coach. That's not even an option. I'm not going to lie and tell you that our hearts aren't breaking, because the two of you are like our moms. Then again, I won't lie and say that I haven't seen this coming..." Tina sniffled and gave the woman a hug.  
Quinn wanted to do the same, but she was preoccupied and when she spoke, she said, "Mercy doesn't need this," and left the room, hugging herself, conflicted with every step of whether or not she should simply back off, as she had been now, for a while.  
Shannon passed hugs out, all over the room and let them all know, "If Emma didn't have all of you to look out for her, I would stay, no matter what it cost me. I never wanted to leave, but it isn't easy and its not good for her to have the stress of us falling apart."  
"She'll come to understand these things," Rachel offered, though she didn't know Emma nor Shannon nearly as well as the others did.  
Artie told Shannon, "If you lose touch with us, we're gonna find you. We're gonna find you. And you can run and tell that, run and tell that..."  
"No," Lauren said, shaking her head.  
"Never too soon for some comic relief," Artie retorted.  
"Yeah, it is," Lauren said and just shook her head again as she hugged Shannon. "So... you're what, leaving town?" Lauren wondered.  
"Yes... I'll keep in touch," she said and set her key on the counter. When she left, the room went back to silence, except for Tina, Shane, Artie and Kurt gathering into a small circle. Mike, Lauren, Blaine, and Rachel started for another circle and Rachel pulled her mother with her.  
"I feel like things happened that I don't quite understand," Shelby commented.  
"Yes, but we're going to leave them to a bit of family time. They're like... her kids..." she tried to explain without bringing up the institution.  
"Okay..." Shelby said and watched as Emma's "kids" disappeared, presumably to go check on her.

This can't be real! It can't be! We gave each other vows. We had a wedding ceremony, even though it isn't legally accepted! We promised forever... Emma sniffled as Mercedes gave her some water to wash down the pill that Sam had given her. He watched his woman go into motherly mode. She always forgot herself when one of her loved ones was hurting. She always became the nurturer. He noticed Quinn lingering near the doorway and went to meet with her.  
She bit her lip and took a deep breath, putting on her business face as she did. "I realize that I am not supposed to do this, but I can't help but worry about Mercy, right now. I've been silent, though its obvious that you two are going through some kind of relationship problems - it isn't my business and I haven't interfered nor intervened.; but whatever it is; I AM worried and I know that what just happened is going to crumble her to her core..."  
Sam gave the blond woman a sympathetic smile and she didn't know whether to be grateful or offended... He generally caused that type of confusion inside of her. He still reminded her of her father, at times, but mostly, she knew that they were completely worlds apart. He genuinely loved Mercy and would never intentionally hurt her and he loved his family and his friends, too. He even, in some weird way had love for Quinn and she had some level of some type of attachment to him that she could not quite label, but right now, he saw her struggle and she elected to believe that she would be grateful for his acknowledgment. "Quinn, there's nothing wrong with you being concerned about her. She's your sister, in every sense of the word, but blood. I've always appreciated the fact that you love her so much and care about her. Don't feel like you can't ask about how she's doing or do something reasonable to show her that you love her. But, know this - I would never let her crumble. I am here for her and yes, this is going to be hard for her, for all of us, but we'll get through it, as a family." He pulled Quinn close and hugged her.

She accepted the hug, then turned to see the others coming up the hallway. Quinn extended her hand to her friends and Tina grabbed one, and Shane grabbed the other as they all went into Emma's room. She had comforted all of them so many times. She had been their therapist and caretaker for so many years, and now... she could not take care of herself, properly. Now was not the time to point out that she NEVER would have left Shannon, if things were switched around, It would never be the time for that. Emma needed their love and support more than anything, at the moment.

Sam was about to leave when Quinn reached out to him with one hand, from the bed that they all were silently sitting on and he entered the room again, shut the door and joined them.


	7. The Ready

**The Ready**

Upon arriving in town, Marley touched base with Sam to get the contact information of all of Mercedes' previous personal assistants; then, she set up a meeting with them. Marley, Rachel, Lauren, Stacie, and even Sam and Quinn were treated to a catered lunch, as she asked every question that she believed she would need the answers to in order to best assist Mercedes on a daily basis. She withdrew and recorded any additional information that they were willing to provide, as well. "All of the information can be found in the big binder that I directed Sam to weeks ago," Rachel said at the beginning of the meeting.

Marley glanced at her notes and said, "Mrs. Hudson, the big binder is over five years old. I'm sure that much of the information is the same, but much has changed as well and as a friend to Miss Jones, I am sure that you have her best interests at heart. I am trying to be the assistant that the beloved Babydoll deserves."

"I have no problems with that," Rachel said, shrinking in her seat a bit. Quinn had to swallow a laugh at Rachel. She didn't _hate _her, at all, but there would always be a bit of rivalry or something like it between them, as far as Quinn believed. Marley had a power point presentation, with graphs and schedules, calendars, walking map routes… She combined all of her information in order to create her own personal assistant's work planner.

"I feel like she'll do a great job," Quinn stated.

"She's a bit overzealous," Stacie commented.

"I love to see that," Quinn responded.

"Ladies, ladies, please," Marley called out and clapped her hands, for their attention. Stacie made a stink face and looked at Sam, like 'Is she serious?'

Quinn smiled and clapped her hands once, as she said, "I love her. She's perfect." Sam nodded in agreement and threw a smile at Marley.

Leaving the meeting, leaving her to compile everything for her purposes, Quinn announced to the exiting group, "This is the first time in a long time that I don't think I have to worry about whether or not Mercy's being properly handled." Stacie grunted and Quinn clarified, "It isn't that I thought you were in competent, I just know that its difficult to handle college courses and a job like being Mercy's personal assistant."

"Right," Stacie said and rolled her eyes, heading for her truck.

Marley set the breakfast table, placing the plate, mug and glass and additional dishes in the appropriate place according to the diagram that she had made from Lauren's information, as Sam came into the room, hair tousled all about his head, wearing a tank and a pair of sweatpants. "Mr. Evans, I hired a dogsitter with my expenses fund to see to your brother's dogs. He will do the feedings, walking, playing and grooming that they need, for all three dogs. That should alleviate some of the responsibility that Miss Jones has taken on with taking them in." The coffee smelled amazing and though Sam did not too much drink coffee, he decided that he'd get a cup of it. "I extensively cleaned out the coffee maker, to ensure a better quality brew," she told him as she put the recommended add-ins into Mercedes' mug. "Before you drink that," she said and presented a small measuring cup of Mercedes' coffee to him, "I only had approximate measurements for her sugar, cream and liquer."

Sam took a sip and nodded, "Tastes better than it usually does, but it still tastes like her coffee, to me. She might have a different opinion," he said with a shrug.

Moments later, Mercedes entered the room in her nightgown and said, "It smells really good in here!"

"Your breakfast and coffee is prepared and waiting at the table for you," Marley announced, "Chicken and cheddar crepes with hollandaise sauce and honey almond waffles and buttercream syrup." Mercedes smiled brightly. That sounded delicious! "I'm going to take Kissy Kissy Bang Bang and Clusterfrak for their morning walk while you feast and when I get back, I'll clear the table, put the dishes to wash and let you hear all of your messages."

Mercedes took a bite of her crepes and moaned, "Mmm! You are an angel."

Marley smiled as she collected the two dogs on their leashes and announced, "And to avoid Miss Jones from starving to death, I made enough for the both of you, Mr. Evans," she said with a wink.

"Hey! I resent that! I'd starve before I eat up Babydoll's food."

Mercedes teased, "Yeah, you say that now because you hadn't tasted these crepes yet."

Sam fixed himself a plate as Marley left the house and he joined Mercedes at the table. He took bite of his crepes and moaned, "God, she is so perfect!"

"These chicken and cheddar crepes are boss and she seems to have excellent organizational skills. She's very polite and QUINN gave her a stamp of approval," Mercedes told him.

"Yeah. She graduated at the top of her class and her references are all wonderful. Missy really outdid herself with finding her for me. She's perfect."

"Yeah – you said that," Mercedes said, with a tinge of jealousy and annoyance in her chuckle.

Sam blushed and cleared his throat as he reached out for her hand and stroked it, "I'm just grateful that we've found someone who will make things easier on you, Baby."

"A 'perfect' someone," she said with a scrunched nosed smile.

Sam laughed and shook his head, "D'awww… I LOOORRRVE when you're jealous! So sexy! She's just a perfect somebody for taking care of my treasure," he said and kissed her on the cheek as she pouted.

"She'd just better get it into her head that you've got your treasure."

"What's that mean?" Sam asked, laughing.

"She wants you. I can tell," Mercedes said as he scoffed. "Its in how she talks to you – her tone and the inflections in her voice and when she giggles with or because of you, its different than her usual laughter. You know that I'm never wrong about this. I have been able to tell you every single woman that has set her heart on you for the entire time that I've known you, Sam. Never been wrong and I'm not wrong now. Annnnddd… I think you kinda like her too," Mercedes commented.

"Sure," he said and shook his head to himself.

"You'd best believe I'm not letting you go easy, Mr. Amazing," she said.

"Not letting me go easy? You'd better not let me go at all. You try it and you'll have the fight of your life on your hands…" She laughed and he playfully snapped, "Don't you laugh at me, Babydoll. This is serious business. You can ty to leave me if you want to. I'll stalk your ass!" she laughed harder and clutched herself as she did. "You'll have to kill me to get me to stop – then I'm gonna haunt you. Real poltergeist type stuff, too. I'll switch around your color codes and have you in uncoordinated patterns. You don't know what that means, but everybody around you will think you look crazy as hell."

"Sam, if you ruin my flawless streak of being fabulous, you're the one that better be ready for a fight, like that Marley chick better be ready for a fight if she doesn't control that flirty giggle!"

"Mmm, your jealousy is delicious," he said and attacked her with kisses and tickles. "We don't have to think about any of that as long as we're sure to agree that we'll never let each other go."

Mercedes wrapped her arms around him and said, "Yeah, I can agree to that."

"Good! Now, if only I could get you to agree to setting an official wedding date…"

"Ok," she said with a nod and a smile.

"Seriously? Because, I've got one in my head – January 4th."

Mercedes nodded, "Ok… but not the upcoming one but the following. I don't want our plans to get in the way of Tina's."

"Babydoll… to confirm, you seriously will marry me on January 4th, not the upcoming year but the next?"

"Yes. I figure that by that time, things should have settled down. The movie will be ol news, maybe the show will still be on, maybe not, but we won't have to be involved in it, either way, from what I've been told, you should have your REAL book out by that time, hopefully, Stevie will be home, and most likely… all of your tattoos will be gone.." Sam heard the sadness in her voice when she said that last part. He knew that she was still worried about his feelings changing. She waited for what seemed like forever before she heard a little moan from him and felt his lips take hers captive.

"I think that the wait for it won't be as hard for me now that you've agreed to a date," Sam told her. "And I've been wanting that date since I proposed, since it's the day that I first met my savior."

She tilted her head and said, "You told me that you gave your life to Christ at a Christian summer camp."

"My savior with the lowercase 's,' Babe. YOU. I first laid my eyes on you January 4th, almost three years ago. I knew you were beautiful, but I had no idea that I would ever have feelings for you and I certainly never thought I'd ever have the feelings that I have for you. But, it didn't take me long to know that you would always mean everything to me. You always will, Mercedes. I would never leave you and I will never let you go." He nuzzled her neck and she moaned as he continued on. His mouth began to linger, his hands began to wander. Something about the fact that she had agreed to a date and his reflection on meeting her and what she had come to mean to him made her irresistible to him…

Marley returned with the dogs to find breakfast still on the table and no sign of Sam and Mercedes. She bit her lip and wondered if she had made too much. She released the dogs from their leashes and went to check to see if they needed anything. Upon nearing the bedroom, she heard what sounded like sex noises – moans and heavy breathing an she reflexively wanted to stop it. She lifted her hand to knock on the door, then froze and called Missy.

"Gundi speaking!"

"Miss Gunderson. Marley Rose, here – the personal assistant that you assigned to Mercedes Jones, Sam Evans' fiancée."

"Of course, Marley. How can I help you?"

"I'm a bit alarmed and confused. You told me to try to make sure that things were in order, but I believe that Mr. Evans is breaking his vow of abstinence," Marley said and bit her lip.

"With whom?" Missy asked.

"With… with Miss Jones, of course!" Marley answered, with a puzzled expression. _Who else? _

"Let me speak to him, Marley," Missy said.

"I can't just interrupt them," Marley said.

"Of course you can, I've done it and I did it all of the time. How else do you think they maintained their abstinence? Knock on the door, apologize politely and tell him its urgent."

Marley quickly followed those instructions and said, "I am so sorry, Mr. Evans, but Miss Gunderson is on the phone and she says that its urgent."

Sam groaned as Mercedes caught her breath and mumbled, "It's always urgent with her!" He flung the door open and snatched the phone from Marley's hands. "What si it, Missy? I'm trying to have breakfast!"

"I am so sorry to interrupt the most important meal of the day, Sam; but , the Lord placed it on my heart to call you and check on you. I know that you never answer my calls when you're on a break from me, so I called Marley instead, because my soul was vexed. So, what's going on? Is everything alright? Are you in need of spiritual care?"

Sam sighed and leaned against the doorway. "No. Everything's fine?" He replied with a bit of guilt in his tone. "I mean – something was maybe about to happen, but you, uh.. you stopped it, as usual."

"Wanna talk it out, Sam?" She asked.

"No. It's good. But since I have you on the line, let me tell you… Babydoll and I set our wedding date." He let out a little man giggle afterwards.

Marley gasped in excitement, with a wide smile and Missy let out a falsely enthusiastic laugh and said, "It had better not conflict with any of your projects."

Sam blew raspberries into the phone with his tongue, then told her, "No project is more important than my wedding. Put it in your calendar, by the way. January after next on the 4th. It's a Saturday, so that's perfect, and I have to go finish breakfast and have some morning cuddles."

"Sam…"

"Gotta go, Gundi!" Sam said, hung u and handed Marley her phone back. "Next time, Marls – tell her 'no.' I'm on a vacation from her. Can you rewarm breakfast and bring it in?"

"Of course, Mr. Evans."

"And some fruit if you don't mind!" Mercedes called out from the bed.

"Yes, Miss Jones."

On her way back to the kitchen, Marley answered her phone and it was Missy. "Fortunately, we caught them in time. I worked my magic, so he'll feel bad enough that he shouldn't start it up again today, but I can't always fix this. You have to protect the company's asset. Do you understand me, girl?"

"Yes. I'll handle it next time," Marley said, sighed and rewarmed the food from the table. She made a tray of plates for them and carried it to the room. When she peeked inside, Sam was feasting on Mercedes cleavage, groping at her breasts and thrusting himself against her body. So much for his so-called guilt… She knocked and Sam quickly straightened up.

"Enter," Sam said.

"Breakfast and fruit," Marley announced as she dropped off the tray. "I'm going to clean up the kitchen and I'll be waiting to go over your mail with you, Miss Jones."

"Okay!" Mercedes cheered.

Days had gone by since Shannon and Emma's separation and Mercedes could think of little else. If even Shannon and Emma couldn't make it through some hard times… she hate to complete the thought. _We can make it, _she told herself. Sam was right. The things that they had gone through were evidence enough! _We can make it if Sam doesn't get even more confident when his tattoos are gone. We can make it if someone better doesn't come along and win his heart like I did. We can make it if I stop getting worse mentally. We can make it if I relax and if my medicine fixes me…_ That sure as hell seemed like a lot of "ifs."

Their situation had changed, but after hearing Shannon's reasons for leaving Emma, Mercedes became determined not to change into somebody that Sam couldn't be with. Maybe the medicine was working, maybe she was coming back to her senses. She was starting to feel like her former happy self again, little by little. She became motivated to keep her man and she knew that agreeing to a wedding date was a huge step in the right direction. Feeling on Sam's face, she could tell how happy she'd made him with that choice.

Then came the kissing and the touching and the tasting… She hadn't _forgotten _what it felt like for him to perform oral on her, but she hadn't remembered it being anything like _that. _She exploded and when she reached for him, "I don't have any condoms, Babydoll," he moaned desperately yearning for her, moving himself against her touch.

"I don't even care, Sam. I want you, now!" She said, grinding against him. Then, as Sam hungrily kissed her neck and chest, pushed down his pants and prepared to slide in – fate intervened. They heard a knock.

As Marley went to fetch breakfast, Sam commented, "Its probably for the best that she stopped us – since we're maintaining abstinence."

She sighed and said, "I guess, but if I get assailed by those lips again, we might have to move that wedding date up."

"Oh yeah?" Sam asked before attacking her chest and smooches.

Mercedes, Tina and Quinn sat at their usual table at the swanky café, discussing Tina's wedding, with soup, salads, and sandwiches. Tina waved a breadstick at her friends as she seethed, "I swear if ONE more person tries to tell me that there's no way that I can make fuschia, burnt orange and bright yellow work, they are getting CUT! Hello! I help people look good for a living. How would I fail myself on my wedding day, of all days?"

Quinn replied, "Not everyone has the ability to mentally visualize things that they haven't seen. Please don't cut anyone and end up having to pay fines for assault, like I am." She smiled and raised her glass to Tina.

Tina glared and suggested, "You really should have punched her in the face more times." She bit her bread and went on, "So, Mercy – how is Cheerio handling cheering for her?"

"As far as I know, she's handling it fine. That kid doesn't talk too much to others. She holds too much inside and to be straight – I really worry about her. I want to be her friend, but tis like she thinks that we're not genuine or something. She's even withdrawing from Stacie, now."

Quinn sighed and shook her head, "I am not looking forward to Beth's teenage years," she commented. "God have mercy, they seem so close."

"I can try to get one of the counselors I know to get involved with Cheerio. IS she seeing a counselor already? We all know how hard the transition from institution to real life is WITH good counseling."

"As far as I know the only person that she really talks to is Stevie. He's like her only friend."

Tina shook her head and said, "So sad that she doesn't want to let anybody in."

Quinn commented, "She'll get over all of that. She just needs some more time. I think that she honestly loves the Evans family and Mercy, and she just needs to get use to having a real family to be there for her."

Tina dipped her sandwich into her soup and said, "Enough gloomy. Mercy, you look really happy. You're glowing again. We haven't seen that in a while."

"I _am _happy! Ok, ok, ok – Sam and I have set a wedding date!" She cheered and kicked her feet around happily under the table.

Tina squeed, leaned in to hug her and said, "I'm totally about to text chew Sam out for not telling me this!"

"Why would HE tell you – I'm your sister. He's just the friend!" Mercedes commented.

Tina opened her mouth to say something, but Quinn cut in and asked, "When is the big date?"

"January 4th of the year after next."

"The anniversary of the day that he first came into our lives… That's cute. Congratulations. We could use some good news after Emma and Shannon."

Mercedes bit her lip and said, "I don't even want to think about that."

Emma brushed her hair for so long that she couldn't remember starting the task. Eventually, she gave her brush a puzzled stare, then put it down on her dresser. She stared at herself in the mirror for a time. Her head hurt and she didn't feel like getting up. So she just sat there until exhaustion set in and she went to sleep on her arms, lying on her dresser top.

Marley arranged for Dwight to stay with Emma for Halloween, as everyone else had plans and she didn't want to join any of them in their plans, as she seemed to be doing progressively worse with coping. April came along to keep Dwight company and Shelby came around to check on her. Emma sat on the couch, with her hair in two plaits that Tina braided earlier, wearing a pair of jeans and a big yellow t-shirt that hung off of one of her shoulders. She had a big bowl of plain popcorn on her lap, but had yet to eat any of it as they allowed the television to play some random horror movie marathon.

"Is that plain white popcorn, no butter, no cheese, no nothing?" Shelby asked, teasingly. "Still the same old Emma."

"Obviously not," Emma commented, still not eating the popcorn. If she was the same, Shannon would not have left.

April awkwardly rubbed her hands together and glanced at Dwight. She knew Emma well enough, as she was frequently brought to the shop, but she did not talk to her much. This was the most time she had spent around her ever and she had no idea that the red head was so cranky. Then again, she was going through a tough time and April knew a thing or two about those. When the doorbell rang, April grabbed Emma's treats bag and went to greet the kids trick or treating. She pulled out an apple, an orange and a banana for the three kids and waved at them as they left. Wow… fruit… She came back into the room, electing not to comment on giving out fruit on Halloween and instead spoke to Shelby, "So, um… you're Rachel's MOM? Honey – what is your secret? Your diet is clearly better than mine!"

"You look great," Shelby said waving a hand. "But, Em here looks just like she did in high school."

"She looks just like a little girl," April said. Emma didn't even seem to hear either of them now as she stared straight ahead at the TV. April bit her lip and said, "So, you two went to high school together. Cool."

Shelby smiled and said, "Actually, we were secret sweethearts for a time. You know, back then, it was unspeakable for two girls to do that in high school, but it was the deepest puppy love that I've ever had." She gave Emma a sad smile. Emma faced her for a moment, then faced the movie again.

April awkwardly commented, "Well, if two women had the capacity to make a baby, the two of you would've made gorgeous kids."

"Well, you and Dwight are going to make some pretty beautiful little ones, yourselves," Shelby complimented back. Dwight's eyes widened and April laughed loudly.

"Oh, Dwight and I are just friends! And we haven't even been that for long. Besides, his kids are all grown up. For him to have a child now or later would be a complete start over."

"I've got grandchildren," Dwight said.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Shelby asked. "I thought about adopting a few years back. I was one of the people that Quinn Fabray considered when she thought she would give Beth up. When she pulled out of it, I didn't have the heart to fall in love with the idea of being able to adopt. So, it's been so rewarding to have Babs in my life."

"Having a grandchild is more fun than having kids," Dwight said.

Emma finally spoke, "I was afraid to have any children of my own. Shannon tried, but we found out that she had been made unable to conceive, from the abuse from her ex-husband. So, if we ever wanted any, I would have to carry them. I wasn't comfortable with that, though. My birth dad killed the man who raised me and my mother. He was a monster and even though Will and I had grown up together, virtually inseparable, I watched him over the years become an even worse monster than our father. I figured that there was something bad in our blood. I hated the thought of bringing another possible Preston or Will Schuester into the world…"

The room was completely silent as awkward glances were exchanged between Dwight, Shelby and April. Emma continued to stare ahead. Dwight cleared his throat and said, "You know what? We should get out and do something mischievous. When I was young, we used to commit petty vandalism on Halloween."

Shelby chuckled and said, "And then you grew up and learned how frustrating cleaning up eggs and toilet paper is…"

April said, "We should do it! Let's TP Schuester's house!"

Dwight clapped his hands, "Yes. Let's."

Shelby held up both hands and said, "Wait! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's vandalize the house of a murderer who killed his daughter's mom and her husband, and was allegedly involved in the deaths of several other people, as well? Is THAT the bright idea that was birthed between you two just now?"

Dwight said, "Preston Schuester has spent the past couple of years in and out of court and in and out of although quite swanky – prisons, nonetheless, and he no longer has friends in this town. He no longer has friends, period. He doesn't have the power to do anything about it and he probably doesn't have the staff to clean up the mess for him. I say we wrap up the house and throw eggs at it."

April said, "I got a Sam's Club membership. We can get wholesale paper and eggs for less." She winked at Dwight and they high fived.

"This is crazy," Shelby said.

"And we can burn bags of dog poop on his doorstep, too," Emma said. She and Will used to do that when they were younger. It was always so funny to the two of them – when they were close… when they were friends… "Mercy and Sam have five dogs. There's bound to be some poop handy."

"Put her there!" Dwight said, readying his hand for a high five from Emma, which she gave him.

"This is ridiculous," Shelby said.

They were getting up and heading for the door, as Dwight reminded her, "We are responsible and mature adults for 364 days. Can we not be crazy and ridiculous for this one night only?" He asked, putting an arm around her, with only Emma noticing the displeased look on April's face at the contact between the two of them. Shelby and Dwight began going back and forth about it, until Emma interrupted.

She grabbed Shelby's hand, pulled her from underneath Dwight's arm and said, "Shut up, Shelby." They got into Dwight's truck, in the back while he helped April into the passenger's seat. As the truck took off, April lowered the passenger's window and cheered, "Whooooooo!"


	8. The Rough Road

**The Rough Road**

Most of the gang decided on doing Halloween at Pieces of Mercy. The staff spent a couple of days decorating and setting up everything, and now Tina and Quinn were posted outside with a caldron full of candy and if the kids were bold enough to walk into the "House of Horrors" to meet the "blind witch," they got a special treat. Artie, Sam, Mike and Lauren were each dressed up as monsters lurking to reach out and tap them from certain hiding spots or to give chase behind them, as they travelled through the dark, smoky shop to find Mercedes in her witch costume with her gift goodie bags and if they want – a short, scary story. It was a riot for all of them – the gang and the kids.

Jake had taken Beth trick or treating and Quinn was texting him every few minutes to make sure all was well with it. She wasn't keen on trusting anyone with Beth, alone, but Beth was starting to wonder why her mother was so overprotective and felt like it was ruining her young life; so, Quinn was trying to be less overbearing and allow at least a few close family members the chance to get to know the child on their own terms… She wasn't handling it well, so Jake told her that she could contact him how often she needed to and call as many times as, too. She took full advantage of that.

Finn and Rachel took Babs to Emma's house, the community center, and POM, and they decided that it was enough the night. The driving around, the gushing over her costume and having them take photos of her, made them both exhausted. They went to Carole and Burt's afterwards for more photos and some dinner. Rachel realized that she had some missed calls from her mother, but she decided that she would call back the next day. Shelby was supposed to be trying to make some friends. Rachel worried about how much time she spent alone since returning to Lima. She wanted to try to help her connect with some old friends and stuff, but then the situation with Emma made that pretty awkward. HOPEFULLY, hanging out with the others tonight would do her some good.

"That's adorable!" Stacie cooed as she pulled her keys out of her pocket to give to Cheri.

Cheri was buckling Cowboy's baby seat into the truck, "Cornflake's gonna love it… and hate it. Poor guy is always so thrown off kilter when he sees Cowboy, I sometimes hate visiting him. The visits make him sad, because he only gets that little glimpse of his boy's life… but then again, it's all he's got and he doesn't want to be a stranger to his son."

"He won't, and he'll be fine," Stacie assured her as she handed over the keys. "One day, you two will be married, OPENLY in love, looking at the old photos and thinking about how things were at this moment – and you both will look at each other, grateful that you didn't lose faith and that you didn't give up. Then you'll kiss and it'll be beautiful, but then Cowboy will come into the room about to say something, then see you two and declare, "EWWWW! GROSS!" Stacie laughed and gave her friend a hug. Cheri just rolled her eyes, accepted the keys and threw Stacie a wave.

"I'll park in the lot across the street so that he doesn't see that I've got your truck. Thanks for letting me use it," She said.

"Not a problem. Anything for family," Stacie said. Cheri didn't respond. She didn't try anymore. Now, she simply kept her comments to herself. This wasn't her family and she thought that they never would be. It was pointless to keep arguing it.

After she left, Stacie threw on her Legolas costume, fixed her hair and waited on Joe to pick her up. She'd decided to do Halloween at the community center, and to help Joe pass out treats. Since Cheri had her truck, Joe agreed to pick her up and bring her home later. Joe and Stacie posted themselves right on the inside of the community center to pass out toys and candy. Between visitors, they had a chance to talk. "I love how the Jack-O-Lanterns came out. It's like there's nothing you can't do with your hands."

"There's PLENTY! I can't fix stuff or play an instrument. To be honest, botany, gardening, sculpting, painting and carving is all that I can really do."

"I believe you're misusing the word, "all." That's more than many of us combined can do and I'm sure that you've left things off of the list. I've seen you do so many things so well. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something… How would you feel about helping to make things beautiful at my grandfather's church?"

"Helping to make things beautiful?" She repeated.

"They definitely want a mural, maybe some paintings and I've convinced them that some flowers might be a nice touch, too. They would pay for all of the product that you need and whatever it is that you'll charge them for your labor. Whatever you charge, I'm sure will be less expensive than if they hire some company or something, and my grandfather would prefer to hire a Christian company or a Christian… I told him that you're the best kept secret in town for this task."

"That's sweet. Thank you."

"I don't know if I would call it sweet. It's the honest to God's truth. By the way, if you happen to ever need any help with fixing anything or playing an instrument – you know my number and I'm always available for you, Stace-Face."

She stared at him for a moment, then softly said, "I'll remember that, Joe-Yo…"

He grabbed her hand and asked, "And, you'll think about the job offer?"

She stared at her hand in his and said, "No. I mean… the answer is yes. I don't have to think about it." He squeezed her hand and let it go. They looked at each other and she was going to say something, but then a group of children came in and she smiled and reached for the treat bag. Joe sighed and stared down at his bare feet. He got up suddenly, while she was passing out treats and he went to his office. Stacie was concerned, but he didn't resurface until it was time to close up the center and take her home. "So… is everything alright?" She asked as they got into his car.

"Yes. I went to check on something and I just don't know how I feel about things," he said.

"What is it?" She wondered.

He sighed, "Quinn's allowed Beth to go somewhere without her that isn't school or her grandmother for the first time and I called to see how she was handling it. She didn't handle it very well and she was glad that I called her. She told me that I am the only person who ever understands her sensitivity and thanked me for calling… I… I kinda hate it when I check on her, because it usually reminds me that I did absolutely nothing wrong, and yet she still just threw me aside. But, we're still friends and I still care about her. I can't just avoid her. I'm sure that you don't want to hear me do this," he said. "And, I usually don't. There's just something about you…"

"It's easy for people to unload on me. I know." He reached for his hand and held it. "You aren't alone. Everybody has had at least one person that we pine over, even though we know that we can't have them."

"That's not what I'm doing," he said. "I'm just trying to be a good friend and a good Christian. I don't want her to think that after everything I've seen her through that I won't be here for her when she needs somebody... No – when she needs the ONLY person who ever understands her sensitivity." He chuckled. "I always knew that she wouldn't end up with me, Stace. That didn't change how I felt. But, some part of me thought that she wouldn't end up with anybody else, either. She had so many issues that she wasn't willing to work through that I presumed that she wouldn't bring herself to do it. I'm glad that she did, but that meant new possibilities and opportunities. I'm proud of the changes and the progress that she's made, but that proud human side of me is bitter that she decided when she was getting help that the ONE person that she credits as always understanding was no longer good enough for her." He chuckled.

"Joe, I'm sure that if Quinn was honest with herself and with you, she would tell you that her decision had nothing to do with you not being good enough for her. It had more to do with the fact that she knows you're too good for her. You were always too good for her."

"I get tired of hearing that," Joe said. "It isn't a complement, Stacie. For someone to say 'you're too good for this' or 'you're too good for that.' It only makes me feel like being good means I don't get to be rewarded. I believe in Heaven, but what about right here? I'm too good to have good things while I'm here? I want a woman. I want a wife. I want a family. I can't have that if women are constantly turning me down based upon my goodness."

"You're going after the wrong women," she said, simply. "The kind of woman that a man like you needs to marry is the kind who is waiting to be a wife… not the kind that you have to try to mold into a wife. Nobody likes people trying to mold them. When you find the woman for you, she'll already be the kind of woman that you want and need, and all of the changes that need to be made between the two of you will be done together. You have to have faith." She kissed the back of his hand and let it go, then faced forward until they reached the house. "Oh, wow. I am the youngest person who lives here and the first one home on a holiday. Even my dad and April are still out?"

"Guess so?" Joe said, noting that there were no vehicles present and no lights on. "I think that I should walk you inside. People are even more crazy on Halloween, and I'll just feel better if I walk you inside."

"Ok. You can stick around, too. We've got some pumpkin stuff left. Pie, maybe cupcakes or muffins, and definitely roasted seeds. I'll fix tea, too."

"You don't have to fix anything," he said, as they got out of the car.

"I know, but I want you to hang out until I know that you aren't gloomy. I'm… not really used to that," Stacie said.

"And you don't have to get used to it…"

"Well, keep me company until somebody gets home, if not to let me cheer you up. Stay and keep me safe," she said, with a smile, unlocking the door.

"I don't mind doing that," Joe told her.

Will used to be so much fun. They had been best friends, for life. They were fake sweethearts. They were siblings before they even knew it. Then… they were enemies. This was all his fault. It was his fault that they drifted. It was his fault that so many of the people that she cared about were hurt. It was his fault that she was like this and that Shannon was gone…

She sat in the back of the truck with the cold wind slapping her face, slapping at her tears. Shelby lied down to avoid the impact of that wind, but Emma inhaled and exhaled it. It made her feel a little more alive from the small pain in her lungs. Quick trip to the store, to Mercedes' for the dung, and then the long drive to the Schuester house. Much of the adventure, she felt as she usually did – like she was simply floating through it. Then, she lit the bags and watched the flames.

The fire was soothing. She watched it burn in a daze as Shelby and April tried to pull her away because they heard scrambling on the inside of the house. Dwight burned rubber as soon as April slapped the top of his truck twice to let him know that they were inside. While April and Shelby ducked, Emma watched as Preston and Terri came out of the house, confused. He snapped, "Damn it!" Terri peered into the darkness, leaped over the fire, and ran after the truck. _Emma! _She stopped running when she saw her sister-in-law and shook her head, breathing hard. "Emma," she spat, angrily. Emma laughed loudly and borderline maniacally as she and Terri looked at each other.

Shelby and April shook their heads and Shelby said, in a trembling voice, "Terri SAW us! She definitely saw Emma. Oh my God, if she comes after us!..." Shelby got her phone out and tried to call Rachel, but she did not get an answer. She hung up and wrapped her arms around herself, worried about what might happen.

Stevie waited patiently at the usual table, scribbling in the little notepad in front of him and tapping his foot. He wanted to see Cheerio for himself. She had been claiming that she was alright, but he would be able to tell by looking at her, if she was telling the truth or not. However, he'd already presumed that she was not. When she came into the place, he heard some of the tenants laughing. He smiled at her in her sexy cowgirl outfit, pushing the stroller, which was decorated like a horse. He got up and rushed to the stroller to peek inside at Cowboy, dressed like a little cowboy.

Cheri picked the baby up out of the stroller and fixed his hat on him, "I can't get him to keep it on, but I wanted you to see the whole outfit. Took some photos before I left, to show you. We can, sit down and look at them." She sat at their table with Cowboy on her lap.

"How are you?" Stevie asked as he took a seat.

"Alright. Um… Jake's still not talking to me," she said with a shrug. "I lost the one friend that I had out in the real world."

Stevie smirked and told her, "If it was that easy to lose him, then he probably wasn't really your friend to begin with. He probably befriended you because he thought that he could get connections to my family for whatever revenge it is that he thinks he's due. I'm glad that you aren't friends anymore. I never trusted him for a moment. Cowboy doesn't need that." He reached out and touched his son's small hand. "All he needs is you and me. I know that you're doing all that you can, and as soon as I'm able, I promise to make it up to both of you." His eyes found Cheri's damp and blinking to fight off tears.

"You're right, Cornflake. You always are," she told him. She cleared her throat and passed the baby over to him. "Let's take him for a walk?"

"Yeah. Oh, well, I've got Halloween treats for him," Stevie propped Cowboy on his lap to try to show him his different Halloween treats. Cheerio got ready with her phone to take photos. Stevie spoke to Cowboy as he gave him gifts that the baby kind of just patted and lightly tugged on. "I saved you my cookies, and a jello, and made you stuff. Here's some spooky music that I wrote myself and made up the lyrics and everything. Your mom can teach you the songs, when she learns them. Then, I drew you a wicked drawing. That's me, your mom, and me – leaving the movies, getting surrounded by zombies, dancing with the zombies, then fighting and killing them. That's a kina violent, but there's nothing else to do with zombies but kill them." The baby laughed, and Cheri watched as Stevie looked down at him in awe and love. She snapped a great photo and squealed. He rolled his eyes and gave her a look.

"That one was priceless, Cornflake. I wish I had been recording. Nobody will ever believe me when I tell them that he actually laughed at one of your jokes."

"Zombie killing is no joke, Captain!" Stevie said, then paused and asked, "Nobody, like who?"

"I was just saying," she told him, with a shrug. "In the future, and stuff. I mean, hopefully, you're getting out, soon. We get to start meeting people, making friends, building real lives. There will be people there and they will witness your sense of humor." She bit her lip and readjusted the cowboy hat on the baby, while Stevie stared at her, picking her apart. She took a deep breath and dared to make eye contact with him. "People at the daycare and stuff.."

"You see anybody from my family lately?" He asked, squinting his eyes at her.

"It's Lima, Cornflake. Your um… your brother's in town." She said. "He hasn't come to see you and tell you how not in support of Cowboy and I being separated from the family he is? Because he certainly raised a hellstorm about that."

"It's not his decision," Stevie commented. "It's yours, and I would hope that if you decided to go against what I want that you would let me know." She groaned and buried her face in her hands, knocking off her cowgirl hat as she did. "Damn it, Cheri! It isn't dangerous enough for you to have MY child in a place where I have enemies, but you want to be around people who are fucking danger magnets?"

"I have no one else, Stevie!" She cried. "I don't have anyone that cares about me or Stefan, BUT them. How can I turn away from the only family that our baby has?"

"This is my fault," Stevie said and shook his head. "I never should have even allowed myself to impregnate anybody. I know my family is poison."

"But, are they? Cornflake, my family banned me from all of their properties. If someone asks about me, they tell them that I died! People that I knew before see me and they are literally shocked to see me alive! I'm not as talented as I used to be. Not as attractive. I mean, I make good grades in school, but even if I get the scholarship that I'm trying for, what am I gonna do with it? I don't know what I want to do with my life now that being a professional gymnast or a beauty queen are both off of the table. I feel like my life won't amount to much career wise, education wise, society wise… I want to at least have some people who care about me aside from all of that. I'm sorry that I lied to you." She wiped her eyes and Stevie sighed.

"I'm sorry that every time you see me or talk to me, I make you cry," he said.

"You don't mean to," she told him.

"No, but it reminds me of when your mom visited me, the things she said…"

"The things that you refuse to repeat, even though they were enough for you to break things off with me when I needed you," she snapped. He sighed again. "I have nobody on my side but your family. I was selfish. I wanted to feel connected. You know how important it is to me to not be lonely!"

"I know, I know," he said and pulled her into an embrace that sandwiched Cowboy between them. "One day, it won't be like this, Captain. I promise, I'll make it up to you both. I just… I need you to be a little bit stronger for me and for Cowboy. I need you to try to stay away from them. They're toxic. They don't mean to be, but they are. I love Cowboy an I know that he needs you. I don't want anything to happen to either of you."

"I know. I'm sorry. You're right," she squeezed him and stroked his hair. "You're always right." He rubbed his nose against the side of her face, then unhanded her. He didn't nee their departure to be any harder than it usually was.

He handed her the notepad that he'd been scribbling in and told her, "I got this month's notepad done." She smiled, gently and tucked it into her purse. Stevie wrote in a notepad, just like she used to when she was inside – all feelings, all thoughts, random brainstorming, ramblings and doodles…. He gave them all to her. She kept hers, because he couldn't accumulate too many possessions in there, but they promised that when he was out, they would go over them together and until then, she wasn't supposed to read his. Cowboy started fussing around, removing the hat again. "I should have known that you were still in touch with Stacie. That stroller horse is definitely her doing." They looked at the stroller and Cheri nodded and laughed. She was not okay and she knew that Stevie knew it. But what could he do? What could either of them do?

Tina and the others cleaned up POM while Marley brought Mercedes home. Sam shook his head and looked at the leftover treats. "Less than last year. Maybe I won't gain too much weight."

"Just hand it out to customers who spend a certain amount. That's what I do every year at The Magic Mirror."

"Wait – why do you have leftover stuff every year? You do Halloween here," Sam said.

"Shut up," Tina told him. "Mike usually hands out candy from our place and Kurt and Blaine always hand out candy as well. And neither Kurt nor myself are about that gaining weight life. If you want, I can take it all with me, since I actually have the discipline not to eat it."

"No. I have to pluck out everything Reese's first… and I'll give you everything else." Tina laughed at his love for peanut butter candy and continued to clean.

Marley told Mercedes, "Someone's vehicle is here… Oh, I think that's Mr. Hart's car."

"He and Stacie were working the community center together tonight," Mercedes said. "Is anyone else home?"

"Mr. Evan's truck is not here, yet and I don't see Stacie's either," Marley told her, as she got out of her car.

"Cheri's keeping Stacie's truck tonight and bringing it in the morning, before school. She had a visit to Stevie tonight and Dwight must still be at Emma's."

"Still at Miss Pillsbury's house at 10:30? Isn't that late for him to be there?" Marley asked, opening the front door.

"Either that, or he's with April, but I doubt that, because she has to be inside of the halfway house by 10 pm. He could be on his way back from getting her home," Mercedes said.

"Maybe," Marley said. They heard Stacie and Joe laughing lightly together and Marley asked, "Do you need me to do anything?"

"No. I'm good, Marley. Thank you."

"I'll see you in the morning, Miss Jones." Mercedes released the dogs inside and heard Joe and Stacie both call out greetings to her.

"Hey. Good night, good night. I'm going straight to my room to wash up and go to bed. You two enjoy the rest of the night, though," she told them as she passed through the living room. Stacie was seated on the floor, cross legged, now petting Kissy and Joe was on the couch, embracing a cup of tea with his fingertips. They looked at each other and shook their heads.

"She's probably just tired. It was a long day," Joe said.

"Yeah… And she's been much better lately, so she probably is just tired," Stacie said and she and Joe continued to talk.

Mercedes removed her costume and tossed it into her clothing bin, all of it. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. She took a deep breath. It was a stressful night, but it was fun. She felt tired, but restless. She had been happy all night, but now, all of a sudden, she felt seized with worry. She hadn't been able to contact Emma or Dwight. What if something had happened? She took a deep breath. She needed to center herself. She needed to calm down. She reached into the cabinet underneath the sink and reached up, beneath the sink to pull out a straight edge razor. She held it in her hands, felt it, and caressed it. She sighed and put it back. Maybe she would feel better after a shower..

The day was not starting out well. She ran late to Stacie's. Stacie brought her to the daycare to drop off Cowboy, but Stacie was running late for something, so even though she insisted on just bringing Cheri to school, Cheri told her that she would catch the bus, as always and sent her on… but the bus had already passed and she began walking, knowing that she would be super late. But, fortunately, Max saw her an gave her a ride. "Hadn't been seeing you. I thought that maybe Rose had switched daycares," she said.

"Oh? I thought that you were purposefully avoiding me, because I may have come on a little strong, last time," he replied, with a smile. "It wouldn't be the first time someone ran from me."

She smiled and sighed, "I've had some personal stuff going on. Stuff to do with Cowboy's dad and his family."

"They not like you?" He asked.

"I don't care to talk about it," she said. "Let's talk about you." She had not been able to get much information from his license plate, but she had every intention of learning more before any kind of real discussions. She could just hear Stevie scolding her for her trusting nature, now. She had never been more closed off to people as she was now, but it was necessary. She had a baby to protect.

"What do you want to know?" He asked.

"How long have you had your truck?" She asked.

"Couple of years, or so. I got it for close to nothing at all. It was auctioned off after a bunch of stuff was seized from the Schuesters. You hear about that?"

"Yeah, sure. Everyone has," she said, trying to sound aloof about that name, then suddenly saying, "But, she – the wife or ex-wife, I guess is my cheerleading coach."

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, "Really? So, she's not in any kind of trouble, or anything?"

"If she ever was, I guess her trouble is over now. She's a good coach and a nice person. I try not to judge people for their pasts, you know? And, I'm not completely sure that she knew everything that her husband was all about," Cheri said.

"So… you sympathize for her? It doesn't bother you that her husband had a black family murdered to try to cover up that he was part black? Do you really think a woman can be with a man and not realize that he harbors something so terrible inside?" Max asked, studying her face for a moment as she thought. "Seems like she had to know something. There's a book out and gonna be a movie about this thing. It's incredible. Imagine that – Lima getting notice for something! Have you read it, or are you boycotting because your coach isn't exactly flattered in the thing?"

"I don't read very many books," she said. He grimaced. "Don't judge me."

"Can't help it. I'm pretty disgusted right now. How can you not read books?" He wondered.

"Well, I'm mildly schizophrenic, so my ability to retain information and my attention span are frequently an issue. So, from the time I was little and they thought that I had ADD, I have been avoiding things like books because I either travel into another world, taking only bits and pieces of the story with me, or I lose focus completely and can't remember what I've read. I could try to focus and with medication, it is definitely easier to function, but there are plenty of other things that I could be doing, instead of hurting my brain to read a book, when it isn't as easy for me as many other people."

"I… wow… I'm sorry. So, um, mildly schizophrenic, is that like split personalities?" He asked.

"No. Know what, I'm sorry I brought it up. I got on the defensive and opened my mouth. I don't really want to talk about it," she told him, frowning out of the window.

"No biggie. I'll google it later," he told her. The uncomfortable silence that followed was probably as bad as if she would have tried to explain her condition to him.

Then, there was Jake passing her by and willfully ignoring her throughout the day and to finish things off, Terri was in some kind of mood. "The routines that were performed for Homecoming were atrocious. I was embarrassed for you and for myself for being your coach. We will never have another performance on that level. Therefore, I have decided to go through all of the cheers that we currently have to perfect them AND, I have designed new routines, as well. Cheri – you told me that you want a championship this year. I don't appreciate being lied to."

"I didn't lie, Coach D…"

"And I don't appreciate your interruption." Terri pressed play on the remote control and showed the squad a flip that Cheri did. The landing was not all that Cheri would have liked it to be. "That landing was from the pits of hell, Cheri." Some of the cheerios laughed at the comment. "You look like an old lady with bad joints on your land, and the flip itself was in terrible form and pitiful height. Do you hate this squad, Cheri?"

"Of course not! I love this squad!" Cheri snapped.

"I don't appreciate your tone and I don't believe you. If you loved this squad, as the Captain, you would make sure that you are flawless on the field, in the gym, in parades, wherever the uniform may take you. You were the worse one out there and it was a disgrace." Terri slammed a stack of papers on the desk that Cheri was seated at and told her, "You need to learn all of these cheers and be ready by the end of this week to teach them to the squad and you had better lead by example."

"Coach Del Monico, some of these moves, with my knee…"

"So, you're what, resigning from the squad?" Terri asked, folding her arms. Cheri's eyes stung with tears that she didn't want to let fall as she shook her head. "Because that is what I require of every girl on this squad who ever thinks to tell me what they can't do. If you can't do it, don't. Leave the team and make it better without your failures. But, if you stay here, I expect nothing short of perfection from each and every one of you." She began slamming papers onto all of the desks and continued talking, "Everyone will have copies of the new cheers and formations. I suggest you learn each position, in case we start losing girls as time progresses. Cheri, stay after. We need to talk."

The other cheerleaders left, whispering about Cheri being demoted and other such things, through laughter. She simply ignored it. "Can you make it?" Terri asked.

"Yes, Coach," Cheri said, with nod.

"If you can't and you embarrass me again, not only will you lose your position, but there not be room for you on this squad. You will spend every moment on the bench with a brace on, so that people know that you aren't capable anymore. Real life is going to be hard on you, Cheri. I won't prepare you by coddling you or any of the girls. Take any anger or frustration that you feel right now and harness it to prove yourself. You should get to work on those routines. Dismissed." She gathered up her things and as she stormed towards the door, Terri called out, "Tell Emma that I said 'Hi.' It was good to see her last night and I hope to see her again, very soon," Terri snarled.

Cheri stopped and turned around, "I don't see Miss Emma all that much, but I was told that you aren't supposed to contact her, so I wouldn't be able to relay that message. I'm sorry, Coach."

Terri looked at her and clasped her hands together. "Well, I tell you what – tell Dwight Evans what I said. It's important that they know." She forced a smile and turned around to watch the tape, muttering, "Miserable," to herself, as she did.

Cheri headed out and called Dwight on her way outside, "Papa… Could you please come get me from school?" She asked and exploded into tears on the line.

"Sure, Cheerio. Don't cry, Hun. It'll be okay," he said.

"I've had a horrible day," she confessed.

"Well, you can tell me about it while I'm on my way there," he said.

"It's just been bad. Stressful. The visit last night was hard and I just feel really bad right now…" They talked until he got there and she got into the truck, cleaning her face. "Thank you. Um.. Coach Del Monico told me to tell you that it was good to see Emma last night and that she looks forward to seeing her again soon?" Cheri said it with a puzzled look, but she noticed the color leave Dwight's face.

"Did she, now? Well, she's not allowed to be anywhere near Emma, and if she comes 'round, she'll be arrested… or shot," he said. Cheri took a swallow and stared out of the window. Dwight elbowed her playfully and told her, "Don't worry about Terri, or school, or boys, not even Stevie. You just think about keeping yourself healthy and happy and doing the same for my grandson. Holly says that things seem positive for Stevie getting out before Christmas. That's a couple of months." He held the steering wheel tightly ad kept driving. Cheri kept staring out of the window.

Mercedes snuggled in her long sleeve turtleneck all day. Sam cuddled with her for a while, but got up eventually to do things around the house and such. She stayed in bed. Every time she got up, she felt like she would have an anxiety attack. She felt restless. Emma had finally called her this morning to tell her that she had an extremely fun time with Dwight and the others and to thank her for arranging it, and she honestly sounded the happiest that she had in a while, but Mercy still felt uneasy… and she had no idea why she felt that way.

By the time she pulled herself out of bed, she had missed most of the day and still didn't feel up to much. Perhaps she could fake it. Perhaps she could behave the way that her mind was trying to tell her to and ignore the swelling fear in her heart that she had no idea what to direct towards.


	9. The Rustle

_Next chapter, some Samcedes by the lake nice times, amongst other things. Mostly, Samcedes by the lake nice times… Sorry about the long pauses between updates, but there should be another chapter up, soon, K? Love y'all!_

**The Rustle**

Back to normal. Back to normal… that was all that she wanted to do – to get back there! But how could she ever? Her "normal" had been shifted, and Emma was not making it any easier. She wished that Puck was around. When he was, it didn't matter when her normal shifted, because he took care of everything else and made her normal feel that same old normal. God, she still missed him, so much. She felt guilty about it. It would hurt Sam, if he knew, but she couldn't help who she missed. Puck had been one of her best friends for most of her life. "Are you alright?" She heard Emma ask.

"Yeah, how about you?" She answered. Emma probably was going to say something sassy or obnoxious. She had been extremely disagreeable lately.

Emma looked at the plate in front of her and said, "They gave me ranch again, instead of blue cheese dressing."

"So, you're not gonna eat it?" Mercedes asked.

"I don't like ranch. I've told them," she said.

Mercedes waved over someone and asked, "Does anyone see me?"

"He's pretending that he doesn't," Emma said. "But, he's looking right at us. He knows that you can't see. He knows that I'm… He _thinks _that I'm not all there…" Mercedes heard shuffling.

"Emma?" She called, but the woman didn't answer, then she heard commotion. "Marley!" Mercedes called. She reached into her bag for her phone. Marley was supposed to be right back! She had to make a quick phone call and visit the ladies' room and she was going to come right back to the table!

"I am so sorry," she heard Marley saying.

"Marley? Where's Emma?" She asked, but they were too far from her for Marley to hear the question.

"Get them out of here!" She heard a man's voice snap.

"Right away," Marley said, reaching for Mercedes' hand.

"Marley? What happened?" Mercedes wondered.

"Emma poured blue cheese dressing on the waiter's head," Marley said.

"It _wasn't _blue cheese," Emma corrected.

"Emma..." Mercedes sighed, "You can't do that."

"Yes, I can. I can and I did and I feel very good about it. I'm glad that I made that choice. Can I have a salad with some blue cheese dressing, for real, now?" She asked.

"Yeah, but we have to get it from somewhere else. We're being kicked out," Mercedes said, finding Emma's hand.

"I know that, Mercy. Despite what all of you think, I have very good understanding." Emma said, chuckling. Then, Mercedes heard her say, "Bye, Mister Waiter!"

"She needs someone who is professionally equipped to handle her erractic modes, Miss Gunderson! I love my work and Mr. Evans and Miss Babydoll are wonderful, but these conditions are extremely less than ideal and not at all what my contract suggests!" Marley complained on her hands free phone as she stood outside of Emma's home, after having spent nearly hours going to different grocery stores until she remembered the brand of blue cheese dressing that she preferred.

"None of these are the ones that I use," she would say and Mercedes insisted that they had time to visit another store, until finally, she selected one that she was sure of… one that Marley _knew _she saw at the first store that they went to. So, Marley decided to take a photo of Emma holding the dressing, so if this ever happened again, she could show her that this was the one. But., beyond that, she lost a lot of time that she preferred to be doing other work babysitting one of her bosses friends. She felt bad for seeing it that way, but Emma was too much for Mercedes to handle and Marley didn't sign on for her, as well. She would need a completely different set of rules and plans to keep up with Emma on such a scale.

"It's only for a little bit longer, Marley. In another month, you'll be far from Lima. I need you, the company needs you and Sam needs you. I know that you can do it. If not, arrange a meeting with Sam, me and yourself to discuss possibly bringing someone in to see to the woman. It might be good for Sam's image to do that, anyway." Missy hung up on Marley and Marley huffed and shook her head. She honestly didn't want to go back inside of the house, but she still needed to go over the paperwork from the shop that needed Mercedes' approvals.

Mercedes rested her head on Emma's lap and mentioned, "You still haven't told me about how your Halloween was. Did you have fun?"

Emma, instead of answering the question, did something that she sometimes did these days – she started talking about something else. Usually, when Emma did this, the something else being talked about was somehow related to what she was being asked about, but usually not the actual question. Her mind would consider the question and only be able to process a portion of the thoughts that it brought up. This particular time, she replied, "I think that Terri and Preston might be a thing, now. She was at his house. I wonder if she lives there."

Mercedes jumped up, suddenly and asked, "Emma, when did you see or talk to those people?"

Emma thought for a moment, then said, "I probably got confused. All I can think about is the fire."

"What fire?!" Mercedes asked.

"I don't know!" Emma snapped at her. "I have a headache. I think it's time for my nap." She slid herself from under Mercedes and walked away.

"That was interesting, if not terrifying," Mercedes heard Marley say.

"I need to know what she's talking about," Mercedes said.

"Unfortunately, Emma's brain is like puzzle pieces, all mixed up together. She has the complete thought in there, somewhere; but we aren't equipped to pull it out in tact."

"I asked her about Halloween. I just have to ask Dwight what happened," Mercedes said.

… She didn't want to know. She had been pissed ever since Dwight told her what happened. Nobody got hurt, but she was possibly seen? POSSIBLY SEEN! By Preston Schuester – the man who killed her parents, a man who lied to her for years about being her biological father and when she did find out the truth, would have killed her too, just to cover tracks of dirt. By Terri – the wife of her half-brother (who tried to have her stabbed to death and instead, put her in a coma, with brain damage from loss of blood, which was made even worse as they tried to have her killed while in the hospital! Emma seemed oblivious to everything. _Maybe she was safer in a home… _Then, she thought about Puck again and Kim… A home hadn't been safe for either of them.

_That was before, when the Schuesters had clout. _But, could they risk it? "Doll, nobody gonna do nothin' to Emma. If I have to watch her around the clock, I will. Shouldn't ha' been so careless. But, the doctors say that she's like a preteen, right?"

"Like a preteen with memory problems, a short attention span and a poor sense of assessment!" Mercedes added.

"I thought that if she did something preteen like, it might take her out of her Beiste funk. And, it did, but it wasn't a solid plan. Sorry. I promise, I won't let anything happen to her," Dwight said, looking at Emma help Babs to fix her blocks castle that Cowboy was trying to eat. Babs looked like if the infant grabbed one more block, she would go into full diva mode. Marley looked like if they made one more Emma related decision, she would pull her hair out. Dwight offered, "Hey, Lil' Darlin,' why don't you take the rest of the day off, have a glass of fine wine and rest your spirit."

Mercedes tilted her head, at first, confused, then said, "Yeah, Marley. Thank you so much. I know today has been stressful for you."

"I am here to assist you with whatever you need, Miss Jones. Don't apologize. I'll see you early in the morning for the sidewalk sale," Marley said.

"No, it's fine. You can have the weekend off. Sam said something about us getting away a little bit, tomorrow. The shop will be fine without me. They do wonderfully at sidewalk sales."

"Thank you. Enjoy your weekend," Marley said, on her way out.

"Wonder how much of that she actually caught," Dwight said, looking at the woman as she left.

"What difference does it make?" Mercedes asked, "If you keep parading Emma around town, starting poop fires and all this other craziness, we're all going to end up arrested or worse, anyway."

"Calm down, please. I'll go sit with Emma and the kids while you call Sam. He'd want to know this right away."

Sam drove to his father's office and unlocked the door. There they all were, inside – Emma and Mercedes were on the floor, near the playpen that Cowboy was inside of and Rachel and Shelby were seemingly picking Babs up. "Hey," Sam said and waved at everyone.

"Sam!" Mercedes said, relieved as she pulled herself up from the floor to go to him.

He asked, "How's everybody?" Dwight looked up to see Sam giving him a pretty displeased look and the older man scoffed under his breath at it.

"Mom and I were just leaving. Thanks for taking Babs for a play date," Rachel said.

"She may be too old to deal with him before too long. Today seemed pretty frustrating for our little old girl," Dwight said.

"Cowboy tooked my castle down, down when I, and then, when I put it up and he tooked it down and ate my tower," Babs tattled.

Rachel laughed and kissed her on the cheek, "Well, you took down a lot of Mommy and Daddy's stuff when you were as little as Cowboy too," she told her. "Finn allowed her to eat our tax papers the first year. He left her in her high seat where he was working on them at the table." She shook her head about it. Babs gave her a big, innocent smile. She wasn't sure what her mom was talking about, but she was talking about _her, _so in her eyes, this was acceptable talk.

Sam chuckled and asked, "Finn does his own taxes?"

"Oh, yeah. He's not great at words and well, most other subjects. But, he's great with numbers. But, speaking of him, I have to pick him up from the recruiting office. We've got to go car hunting."

"Shelby, I'll give you a call," Dwight said. She nodded once, and Rachel gave her a small smile. As soon as they were gone, Sam turned on Dwight. "Hey, Sammy – I see that you aren't all that happy right now."

"Are you kidding? Dad, what the hell is going on? I entrust you with my fiancée's mentally defected honorary mother and you take her out for a night of mischief against people who have tried to kill everyone that we care about?" Sam exploded.

"It's loud in here!" Emma warned, picking Cowboy up. "We children will go play outside, while the grownups do grownup things," she said to the baby, though it was obvious that her sass was directed towards the others.

Sam asked, "Wanna keep her company, Babydoll?"

"Not particularly," she said, but Emma grabbed her hand with her free hand.

"Come on, Mercy. The guys are gonna get down and dirty," she said.

Almost as soon as the door shut, Sam rubbed his face with both hands and asked, muffled, through them, "What the hell is going on with you, Dad?"

"I messed up," Dwight said simply.

Sam uncovered his face and stared at Dwight, sitting at the desk, calmly. Sam shook his head, looked at the ceiling and nodded, "You're damn right, you MESSED UP! I will go so far as to say that you were completely irresponsible and destructive! Why would you even do something like that? Was it worth whatever the hell you got out of it and to drag Emma into some foolishness like that? Are you… are you having a midlife crisis? Some kind of nervous breakdown?"

"Maybe," Dwight said, with a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe, I got tired. Maybe I'm sick. Sick that I married a woman that I didn't really love so that we could build a family. Sick that I spent more time working than I did at home, so we could afford to eat. Sick that I helped raised one son to go to prison and be savagely attacked. Sick that I raised another to go to a mental institution. Sick that one son is covered in hate ink and the other has fathered a kid that he isn't in the condition or position to care for. Sick that I was on the verge of getting a divorce when my wife died. Sick that both of my sons had to see her die. Sick that one of them murdered someone moments later and that I watched the other one disown her and disregard her memory…"

"Dad…" Dwight's calm talk and tone was alarming Sam. He didn't know why, but this entire mood was creepy to him. However, Dwight did not cease.

"Sick that instead of being able to become the man that should have taught my boys how to be men that whole time, I couldn't even take care of my own daughter as she struggled to finish high school with her family as she knew it in shambles. Sick that my son and daughter-in-law had to support me and my daughter and that they basically gave me a place of business, because I never found suitable work to do everything that I needed to do…"

"Dad, stop!" Sam pleaded.

"Sick that for the first time in a long time, I just needed to feel like there was something that brought me a little bit of fun, of entertainment." Dwight chuckled. It was the first deviation from his monotone rant. "April brings this person out of me – this kid that I was before I started trying to grow up so fast. Emma was depressed about Shannon. I was sick of everything. Shelby was boring. April and I – I don't know who started it, but once we got on that idea, my childhood returned. That childlike innocence and mischief rolled into one took over. It was gonna be some harmless fun. Emma was gonna smile, I was gonna smile and April was gonna laugh that loud, contagious laugh of hers and make my heart jump around in my chest. I was thinking that I didn't care, because there was always something to care about – something crucial, something coarse." Dwight shrugged, "So, I didn't think. I just acted. And now that I'm done, I shall hear a lecture from my own son." Dwight held his hands out towards Sam, giving him the floor, finally.

Sam sat down in the chair on the other side of Dwight's desk, "Dad… I'm so sorry that you've been holding all of this inside, but you know you were a great dad, right? I mean, we've always loved you and we never stopped, even with everything that's happened."

"Speak for yourself, Sammy. Stacie resents me for what happened to your mom and Stevie hasn't loved me in a long time and hasn't gotten any closer to growing to. He doesn't even want me to see my grandson, for God's sake!" Dwight said with damp eyes.

"He doesn't want _any _of us to see him, not even Stacie and you KNOW that he loves her. And Stacie..." Sam sighed, "She doesn't resent you, Dad. She respects you. She's just coming into her womanhood and doesn't too much know how to deal with it and with you, at the same time. I promise, Stacie and I have talked about how much you mean to us. We never would've gotten through any of this without you, Dad. And you already said yourself, you busted your ass to make sure that we always had enough. I came into some fortune and it was no problem of helping you to start your landscaping company. You've wanted to do it for a while – showing me and Stevie how to do this and that, only to have us really not care and Stacie to take it and run with it. You helped her shape her future. She never would've wanted to be a botanical specialist, or whatever it is that she's doing if you hadn't shown her plants and gardening and lawn care and stuff. And… Stevie has some growing to do, but when he gets home, he'll come around and you and me, Dad – we've ALWAYS been good with each other. And we have to have our shit together for Stacie and Stevie."

"Sam, we were gonna just play the pranks and rush off, but Emma… she was in some kind of trans and when they came out, they saw her. I never meant for that to happen. Now, Doll's frightened, Shelby's been shaken as shit since that night, and Emma… I don't know what the hell is up with Emma, but something has been off about her."

"Yeah. Marley told me that she assaulted a waiter, then taunted him on the way out," Sam said, concerned.

"Was that my influence? I showed her to be irresponsible and immature, and now…"

"Both of you have gone through a lot, which is why y'all and all of us need to keep the biggest damn distance from Schuester and them," Sam said.

"Terri made threats," Dwight said. "Told Cheri to tell me it was good to see me and that she'll see me soon, something to that affect." Sam wiped his face down again. "I won't let her do anything to Emma, I promise you that much."

"She's so damn sneaky, though! And Holly says that we can't even do anything about her being Cheerio's coach, because Terri was never found guilty of anything having anything to do with all of the stuff. Will was a bastard, but he obviously cared about her, because he kept her free and clear of everything."

"Or… Preston did. She was there, with him, at the house. If I was claiming to know nothing about nothing, I wouldn't be there, if I was her," Dwight said.

"Yeah – it doesn't matter. We just need to keep our distance and keep our eyes open. We need to watch our backs AND each others'. Mercedes and I were supposed to have a getaway this weekend…"

"Do it. You two need to get yourselves together as much as I need to," Dwight said.

"Don't leave Emma alone, like even for a moment. Remember how quickly Terri poisoned the dogs? She's too cunning. I can't deal with something else happening that upsets Babydoll while she's transitioning into her new meds," Sam said.

"I'll have nice, safe, old people stuff. I'll break out the board games and we'll make a weekend of it," Dwight said. "I'm sorry, Sam. I honestly shouldn't have been so careless."

"No, you didn't mean to be seen, and if you hadn't been, we'd all be laughing about it," Sam said.

Mercedes knocked on the door, then opened it and said, "If it's private, you'll have to continue, later. It's cold outside and I'm not staying out there another moment."

"Brat," Emma stated. Mercedes huffed, but didn't argue with her.

Sam stood up and stuffed hiss hands in his pockets, "Babydoll, Dad and I were just wrapping things up. I'll talk to you about it when we're in for the night. BUT – there's no reason to cancel our plans. Dad's gonna RESPONSIBLY keep Emma company while we're gone and I'm sure that Stace and Cheerio will help out." Dwight held his head. He was stressed out. Sam could see it. Over the past couple of years, he always got stressed out over the holidays. It was probably about time for another visit to Mary's grave. "So, I guess that we'll talk about this April situation later?"

"What April situation?" Dwight asked. Sam waved a hand.

"Are you two together now?" Mercedes asked with a bright smile.

"No, Doll," Dwight answered with a little twinkle in his eye. Maybe not, but Sma knew that look, even though now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he saw his dad look at Mary that way before she died, or even if he had ever.

"Well, I hope that you and Emma don't get into any sticky situations, because I gave Marley the weekend off," Mercedes said.

"I promise I'll be a big boy, Doll. No shenanigans from this end," Dwight said.

"Good," Mercedes said.

"Such a brat!" Emma said.

"Ugh – Emma, you're new attitude is not cute!" Mercedes said.

"I think that we're taking Cowboy?" Sam asked.

"And have Cheri throw a fit? No, Sam. Leave him here. I have to pick her up from a late practice."

"She's like always practicing," Sam said.

"She's the captain, Sam," Dwight told him, getting up from the desk, finally to retrieve Cowboy. "I'm gonna go grab her something to munch on before I get her. I'll leave out with y'all."

Dwight accepted Cowboy from Cheerio and put him into the pouch he wore to hold him. "And, you'll be done with practice, when?" Dwight asked, handing her the keys to his truck.

"I'm not sure, but it's still not too late for me to catch the bus, I'll just have to get you to pick me up," she said.

"Stacie can bring me home. If you get a better idea of what time practice will be over, let me know. You've been practicing hard and late."

"Yeah – there's some difficult routines," she said and gave him a hug. "Thank you, Papa Dwight." She kissed Cowboy and said, "Sorry Mommy's been so busy. We'll get some cookies later." She rubbed his head and hurried out. She didn't want to be late and she knew that she needed to stretch before practicing. Dwight took Cowboy's hand to wave it towards her. She ran out, almost ran into Jake, paused to look at him, waited a moment to see if he would say something, then left without a word exchanged between them.

Jake and Unique were talking as they carted all of the Halloween merchandise to the sidewalk, where Becky and Lauren set up the sale displays. "I'm just worried about the child," Unique said. "She really cares about you and she's been visibly sad since you two broke up."

"We weren't together and I can't deal with her, Unique. She's gonna wait on Evans for the rest of her life, if that's how long it takes," Jake complained.

"I don't think so, though. And the two of you are so darn cute together. What happened?" She asked.

"I can't depend on her," he said and shrugged his shoulders.

"You _can't?"_ She gave him a look and rolled her eyes. "You could at least give her a damn ride to school. She's a single _teenage _mother, and the two of you are going the same way." Jake now rolled his eyes and finished helping before leaving for school. As far as he knew, Dwight had been taking her to and from school, recently. Just as well. He didn't need her and her stuff in his life.

Jake drove to the lake, and set up. Sometimes, he just needed time to himself. Between his mom always working and his dad never being around, he was used to the solitude. He was still unsure of how he had ever let Cheri in, in the first place. He looked over and saw Mercedes' assistant on a porch swing of a lake house. She must have rented the place. She was cute. She seemed like she couldn't be much older than he was. She shivered and wrapped her sweater around herself as she took another sip of her wine. Jake didn't know why he was even looking at her so hard, because he didn't know much about her. He didn't even know her name, now that he thought about it, but she looked calm and peaceful – stuff like that frequently drew him in.

After a while, he saw Sam Evans come out of the lake house, and the woman jumped up from her seat and the two of them talked as he headed off… where to, Jake was unsure, but he didn't see his vehicle… and that was odd enough. Then, when Sam went into the woods, Jake _really _got suspicious. He grabbed his backpack and went to follow him, trying not to be seen by the assistant – but her eyes were glued to Evans, so he doubted she would even glance his way.

Jake maneuvered to go around to the back of the lake house and hoped that he hadn't missed his opportunity to see where Sam went. In the back of the lake house was a car port that Jake guessed Sam's truck was parked inside of. Jake tried to move closer to it, but the vehicle that came out of it was not Sam's, though he was driving it. It was a car that Jake hadn't seen before. He waited for Sam to leave, then he went to the carport. The only vehicle there now was the assistant's. Jake folded his arms and wondered what was going on. Sam Evans. Cute assistant. Meeting up the woods, at a strange lake house. Driving a mysterious car… He turned and headed back for his little patch of land near the lake. Interesting. He would have to look into this more, later. Whatever it was…


	10. The Retreat

_There are things in this chapter that are done out of order, or not really out of order, but I do mention something and I don't describe it until later in the chapter, and I'm just saying that now, in case it becomes confusing. Let me know if there's a problem and I'll try to clear it up. Thanks for reading/reviewing/private messages/tumblr support, etc! _

_I said that there would be Samcedes good times for their getaway, but unfortunately; I am a person who can't seem to get to that place without crossing over swamps of angst first, so… yeah, there's that, too… _

**The Retreat**

He'd rented a place that was far enough from Marley's rental that she wouldn't bother him this weekend, but close enough that if he was NEEDED, she could make the drive over. His was a better location, more secluded than the one that she had chosen. He left his temporary contact info with Stacie and Dwight, because the cellular phones were generally useless out here, and he took her into the place, just the two of them – no family, no friends, no dogs…

Mercedes was sitting still, near a window, timid about things, because she and Sam hadn't had the best start up on this little trip. He was probably still angry with her for something earlier, but she couldn't change the past and she hoped that if she was silent enough and remained still and out of his way, he would have time to think and to forgive her. She decided to test it out, by commenting, "It's extremely quiet, here," she said. "Like – I hear all kinds of noises, but still, everything feels so… contained."

"Everything is," he said and wrapped his arms around her, from behind. She touched them, gingerly and smiled into his skin. _He's at least going to be nice, now. _Earlier, he was pretty pissed.

"I'm glad that we came out here," she told him.

"I am too. I can't be the only one of us that takes a break from an otherwise hectic schedule. We're stocked up with essentials. Family knows how to reach us if anything urgent comes up and Marley is just a few miles away, if we happen to need her."

"I gave her the weekend off, Sam," Mercedes told him.

"I know, I know… But, she kinda… doesn't only work for you," he said. "It's pretty refreshing out here. When it's not so cold, its perfect. But, since this is a great place, it still gets to be an awesome stay. We got a fireplace and a balcony and the house has a set of stairs that connects to a treehouse. And the treehouse is badass. I may have to buy a place like this for us, for getaways and family vacations and whatnot, you know?"

"You know, for years, my family holidays were me, Shannon and Emma at her bed and breakfast, with Quinn and Puck stopping in after they visited the Puckermans, for Beth and Puck, Tina and Mike stopping in after they visited the Changs and Kim (if they could even make it after that, Kurt and Blaine stopping in after they wrapped up things with the Hudson-Hummels and the Andersons. Sometimes Shane could stop in. Sometimes Artie could spend a couple of hours there. Either I'd stay the few days, or Puck and Q would have me stay with them (or they'd stay with me. They all had actual real families of their own to spend the holidays with, then they would stop in to hug Emma and me – the two lone orphans…"

Sam rubbed his hands across the fabric of her shirt, covering her belly. "I know that Tina and Quinn were pretty much orphans – in a way, but Quinn had a kid with blood ties and Tina still had her sister, not to mention Mike's family that he wanted her to be a part of."

"You don't have to worry about Emma, right now, Babydoll."

"I know that I don't _have _to. But, I can't stop. Sam, I'm all that she has left. She's got the rest of them – but they don't know what it feels like to not have a single loved one to fall back on. I'm the only one that has ever been in the position to not have at least one person. That's why I'm so sad about whatever it is that's happening. She's getting worse, Sam. I made her an appointment with the doctor, but I already know that this isn't going to be good…"

Sam spun her around to face him and he cupped her face, caressing her cheeks, then leaned in to kiss her gently but hungrily. She returned it. "Whatever it is – she won't be alone. _We'll_ always be there for her, Mercy." She nodded her head.

"Have you eaten?" She asked him.

"No, but I can make you something," he said.

She smiled and asked, "Can I help?"

"Of course, m' love!" He cheered and guided her into the kitchen, looking at her limp along. "How's your foot feeling?" He asked.

"It's fine since you wrapped it up ... Sam, I'm really sorry…"

"You aren't perfect. Me staying upset about it isn't going to change that you did it," he said.

"I know, but I'd like you to forgive me," she said, with a troubled face.

"Don't worry about it," he said, his anger from earlier returning. She could feel it and she simply gave him a tight hug to try to ease him, a bit. He kissed her on the cheek. "I mean it. Just.. try not to do it again."

"I wasn't going to," she said.

Sam and Mercedes decided on grilled tilapia topped with tropical fruit salsa, spring mix salad with olive oil and cracked pepper and baked sweet potatoes. "Does any of this stuff even match, Sam?" She asked, laughing as he sprinkled cinnamon on top of her marshmallow on the potato. The different smells hitting her nose didn't seem to indicate that they did.

"Probably not, but I was too lazy to sift through the recipe handbook to see what did match," Sam said. "Recipe handbook. Who even does that?" He asked.

"I thought it was a good idea!" Mercedes said. "Rachel can thank me for the fact that she gets to now make her family matching meals every night."

"You are entirely too concern about things matching," Sam said.

"Sometimes, food cancels out or ruins the taste of other foods if you combine them. You know how I am about what touches my tongue…" She snickered at her slip and blushed.

"Wanky," Sam said, making her explode into laughter. "I miss Santana. Where has she been?" He asked.

"At the shop, Mister. She's literally been there every time that you've come in," she told him.

"I've literally missed her, every time," he said.

"She has a lot to do. I don't work as much as I used to, so she honestly does my job and hers, and it's only going to become harder for her when I leave."

"That's why you have Lauren, right? You have Santana as the store manager and Lauren as the assistant manager, so that the place can be managed by others, other than yourself. To be honest, you shouldn't have to do anything there, at this point in time. It'll be a good change for you, this time around. You'll always have somebody present, in case I'm swept away by a crowd, and we can be together, again. That's the high point of my life. I already feel like all of this has cost me every real friend that I ever made. I feel like I haven't seen any of them in years, and even when I'm around, everything is different."

Mercedes said, "It _is _different. You've kinda outgrown us, but we're your favorites, so you keep us around."

She couldn't see the hurt look in his eyes, when she said those things to him, but she could hear it in his voice when he spoke again, "I don't have a problem getting rid of stuff that I've outgrown, Mercedes, but if I _had _outgrown you, it would only be my ego. You're more than anything in this world to me. There is no outgrowing you." She smiled, tenderly and fiddled with her food. "And, this weekend, I intend to turn things around for us. I miss your wisdom and your confidence. I miss your assertiveness and wit. We have to start talking to each other again. Revisit old conversations – see if each other's views on them have changed. Stay up all night, laughing and enjoying each other's company, reminiscing and singing together and to each other. Make love to one another…"

"Sam…"

"What? We used to, all the time and it connected us on a level that words and other actions just can't," he said.

"Yeah, but – what about the whole vow thing?" She asked, "You know, the one that you decided that you needed to take for your image without asking me how I felt about it?"

"I didn't do it just for my image, Mercedes. I did it, because at that moment, it felt like I was being a hypocrite and that's not the person that I wanted to be. I don't want to be fake or a liar."

"You can't help it, Sam. Your entire image is based upon a lie. You aren't the guy that everyone thinks that you are. I mean, you're wonderful. You're the closest to perfect that this world will ever know, in my personal opinion, but Sam Evans is not the man that Missy Gunderson has introduced to the public!" She threw her fork down onto her plate. She wasn't the least bit hungry, now. "You left me behind, Sam. We were supposed to be partners in everything. We were supposed to be a team. And I know what it feels like when people outgrow you. I know better than probably anybody else that you know what that feels like. Everybody that I have ever loved either abandoned or outgrew me. In the past couple of years, Kurt, Tina and Quinn joined that list. But, I was fine with that. I was fine with that, because I know that we eventually have to forge our own lives and I was forging one with you… but you kept going when I couldn't keep up. You set me aside and said, 'I'll come back for you, when I get a chance, but I can't let you slow me down, right now.' You… _abandoned _me, Sam. I might still have a ring, I might still have the illustrious title of fiancée, but you know that how I feel about being left behind and you were the one person who wore to the heavens and back that I would never have to feel that way about you! So, how do I rectify it, without hurting your feelings or your pride and having you give up completely? How do I deal with it, without becoming a bitch for daring to feel the way that I do?"

"You talk it out with me, like partners should. I'm glad that you're getting this all off of your chest. You've obviously felt this way for a while, now. But, instead of harboring all of that inside, why didn't you just say, 'Sam, I don't want you to go on without me? Sam, we'll have to find another way to do things, because I can't handle being on the road like this, but I can't handle you being on the road and me being somewhere else.' And that damned razor incident this afternoon NEVER should have happened. We've discussed that, Babydoll and you promised to talk to me when you felt that way! Like… damn, Mercedes – I don't understand when we became people who couldn't talk to each other about things!"

"When what Missy says became more important than what I had to say!" She snapped and sniffled.

"Never. That has NEVER fucking happened!" He roared, now completely out of patience.

"It makes Sam appear weak if he draws so much dependency from you and your friends. It makes Sam less marketable if you're always attached to his side. It makes Sam look like a hypocrite if he gives out advice that he's not following!" She shot off.

"I took a vow of abstinence until marriage after I advised a young person to consult the Bible for Christian beliefs. That is literally the only thing that I listened to out of everything that you just said. YOU! YOU listened to Missy more than I ever have! I take what Missy says into consideration, because she's a professional. She knows what she's doing and she's a big reason that we have much of what we have!"

"You have much of what you have because you sold your soul for fame and money. I have ghosts of what we used to be. Those are all that embrace me at night while you're gone, growing, without me. That's why the razor incident happened. Because I was lonely and depressed and panicky and you were at a charity event so loud that you couldn't hear me crying when I called you to try to talk. I tried to tell you how things were going and you all but rushed me off of the phone. At the time, I rationalized that you had more important things to think about than me."

"Fuck this shit," Sam said and threw his fork down, too. Mercedes opened her mouth to say something; but he had advanced on her, snatched her up and began urging her towards the bedroom. "We're biting each others' heads off for no damn good reason. Fussing and fighting ain't solving anything." She stumbled, but he kept a firm hold of her as he practically shoved her into the room.

"What the hell are you doing, Sam?" She practically shrieked. He sat her on the bed and kneeled in front of her to kiss her. Reflexively, she pressed forward into his kiss, missing this between them, but stubborn enough to pull away after a moment, too. "What, fussing and fighting didn't work, so you think that kissing will?" Sam stood up and took off his shirt, and undone his pants, kicking off his shoes. "Sam, what is it that you're doing? Because, you're seriously making me nervous." She felt his hands tugging at her blouse. "Sam…" The blouse was off and he was fiddling with her zipper. "Sam!"

"Do you not want me?" He asked. "You used to want me. You wanted to be with me, to marry me, to have my kids, and you loved me! What… what happened? This kills me, Baby. It kills me!" Mercedes bit her lip and began to remove her pants and shoes, then pushed herself further into the bed, clad in her bra and panties. "I don't want it, if you're only gonna do it to shut me up," Sam said, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He needed a drink. She needed… a song. She had no idea where he had set her bags and she wasn't going to ask him to bring her IPOD.

She felt the need to sing something, but for whatever reason, in the arsenal of songs that she had inside of her to ease her mind and boost her spirits, the song that came from her lips was, "There's a stranger in my house. Took a while to figure out. There's no way you can be who you say you are. Gotta be someone else. 'Cause he wouldn't touch me like that. And he wouldn't treat me like you do! He would adore me. He wouldn't ignore me. So, I'm convinced, there's a stranger in my house…" Sam heard the words she sung and almost burst back into the room to bust her bubble. _You're damn skippy there's a stranger here. You're the one being that stranger. YOU'RE the damn stranger in the house, _he thought to himself, swallowing down his anger as he took another drink of his liquor, emptying the little glass and pouring another as he heard her still singing, "Pop quiz, tell me where we first kissed. Tell me where my spot is. Tell me if I liked it, loved it? Or could it be that the stranger is me? Have I changed so drastically? Is it I want more for me and you remain the same?" Sam damn near threw the bottle.

"I don't fucking know!" He mumbled loudly to himself. "I don't know what's your problem!" He said as she ripped the end of the song apart, seeming to be trying to find her way out of the room. He knew that sound of her rubbing on walls and knocking about, probably in there, frantically pushing at different spots and patting areas down for a knob. He sighed and went to assist her. Wouldn't be fair to just leave her in there, after all. Sam opened the bedroom door, and just as he thought, she was patting around, at the balcony door. He walked forward just as she realized how to open it and he rushed over to stop her from leaving it. "Mercy! That's the balcony, Babe," he said as he gently pulled her away. "I know you love balconies, but you're in your bra and undies." He shut it back.

"Isn't this place secluded?" She wondered.

"Yeah, but if somebody's out there – paparazzi or creeper, or whatever else have you, I don't want them seeing you like this. Only I get to do that," he said. "And, you know – your friends and helpers and stuff." He looked at her face. She was in a lot of pain. She didn't know how to take him blowing up on her like he had, but the frustration had pushed him over the edge. "Sorry about earlier," he said. "I shouldn't have pressed on you at a time like that, in the middle of a fight, while you were clearly feeling insecure, especially after what happened when I got back here... I got liquor."

"I'll have it," she said, with a soft smile.

"There's a full bar. I'll help you pick something out, but you should put on a bathrobe or something, or I might maul you. Mmmm…" He pushed up close against her and she giggled as he kissed at her neck.

"Are you drunk, already?"

"Not even close, Babydoll. I'm… relaxed. Your singing helps, even if you're singing some shit that's just completely inappropriate, right now." She took a deep breath and he watched her eyebrows dance around. "Don't overthink it, Babe. I know that you were probably just singing to relieve your mind."

She cleared her throat, shut her eyes and began to sing, "Seems like yesterday when I saw your face. You told me how proud you were, but I walked away. If I only knew today. I would hold you in my arms. I would take away the pain. Thank you for all you've done. Forgive all your mistakes. There's nothing that I wouldn't do, to hear your voice again. Sometimes I want to call you, but I know you won't be there…" She felt her body heat up as a slew of memories overflowed her mind. "I'm sorry for blaming you, for everything I just couldn't do. And I've hurt myself, hurting you."

That feeling that she felt when Puck rescued her from herself and stuck around to see her back to health. The feelings of him hurting her and scarring her – making her heart hard for anybody else in the future. That feeling of fear and shock when Sam broke down such walls and entered in, saving her from herself, yet again, but in a whole new way… She could never fix what happened between herself and Puck – whether it was things that were all on him or things that were on her, as well, but she still had Sam and she was hurting him. She was letting him slip between her fingers. All of those years that she held on to Puck, when he was a destructive force, she certainly owed it to herself to hold onto Sam, even when he felt far away.

"Some days I feel broke inside but I won't admit. Sometimes I just want to hide 'cause it's you I miss. You know it's so hard to say goodbye when it comes to this. Would you tell me I was wrong? Would you help me understand? Are you looking down upon me? Are you proud of who I am? There's nothing I wouldn't do. To have just one more chance - To look into your eyes and see you looking back…" Sam furrowed his brow. What the hell was he witnessing? He was listening to the words of an unfamiliar song, to him… but this seemed like somebody else's song and he was wrought with the thought of who might be on her mind with these lyrics.

"I'm sorry for blaming you, for everything…"

"Babydoll.."

"I just couldn't do…"

"Mercy…"

"And I've hurt myself.. If I had just one more day, I would tell you how much that I've missed you since you've been away…"

"I'M here," he said, desperately.

She seemed in a zone, because she continued, "Oh, it's dangerous. It's so out of line to try to turn back time…"

"Damn it, Mercedes!" Sam snapped.

"SAM," she sung, "I'm sorry for blaming YOU, for EVERYTHING, I just couldn't do. And, Sam, I've hurt myself, hurting you…" She said, finding his face with her hands and stroked it. She kissed him and whispered, "It was for you, Sam. I know what you're thinking and yes, it would fit that situation, but this song was for you. I love you, so much Sam. I still miss him. I miss a lot of things, but I do still have you and I never want to have to miss you again, especially when I'm right next to you."

"I never left," he said, letting tears fall on her searching fingertips. "I never would."

"You said we could sing to each other while we were here and I was singing that song, a short while back… at… at his gravesite… and all I could think about was you – miles away… growing even further away from me and… I realized that I needed to do something to change what I've been doing to you, and I still haven't. And today has just been a testament to how wrong I've been and how wrong I am."

"It's not all on you, Babydoll. I should have noticed and saw to your needs, right away. You were right about me changing. I lost my focus. I was so determined, so driven to take care of you financially, that I overlooked the fact that what you've always needed from me was that same respect and acceptance that I had for you when we met. When I was the one trusting you to do what you can and I was supporting you. I started supporting myself, instead and I convinced myself that it was the best thing for you and for us, because now, we have a bigger house and my dad is flourishing and Stacie's the first person in our family to go to college and she'll have a career and in a few years, I can stop all of this and love on you and make babies and it wasn't important enough to me to make you feel like you were part of those plans… That's like the ultimate sin for our relationship. And _I've _hurt myself hurting _you, _Baby." Sam pulled her in and kissed her.

"I don't want to fight anymore and I don't want any kind of distance between us. I want us to go back to being a team, but I just feel like lately, we talk about it and we still haven't fixed it."

"We are in the process of fixing it, Baby. It couldn't happen overnight – not with all that we've been doing. But, things are changing back to good for us. I can feel it, Babydoll. I feel it in my heart and in my soul and within every fiber of my being, because I have to believe in us. I have to believe in what we are together." He cupped her face and caressed her cheeks. "When we get back, everybody's gonna be like – what the heck happened on their weekend, because things are already changing."

"Remember what you were saying about our sex after our first time?" She asked.

"That wasn't after our first time, but, yes," he said.

"Well, it was the first time, when we both knew it was right – when it didn't seem just out of nowhere…" she said, blushing from the thought of how she practically threw herself on him the first time and simply wasn't trying to hear no for an answer, despite his reservations.

He'd wanted her, that was for sure, but he knew that she was probably having a moment (which she was) and that made it a bit awkward, but not the least bit less sweet for him. She had chosen him. She had saved herself all of that time, for marriage, but instead of waiting for that day, she had chosen him; and later accepted when he offered her marriage. She was his. Sam became hot thinking about all the ways that she already was his and all of the ways that she would be, in the future. He pressed himself against her and traced her with his eyes, "I remember what I said, nearly verbatim," he told her.

"We never should have stopped," she commented.

"Well, we won't, again. I promise – unless we have a discussion first and both decide that it's for the best."

"Which will never happen," she said, cupping his face now, stroking, remembering his face all over again, taking a deep look at him in that way that made him feel cherished and appreciated. "Tell me again," she said.

"I said that in the Bible, from the moment that God put Adam and Eve together and Adam realized that she was what he wanted, was his to have, he took her. He claimed her. She was his wife without rings and candles. She was his wife without ceremony and fanfare. She was his wife when they connected in love and their souls became one… and that's how I feel about you. I never felt that way when I've been with other women, but I feel that way now. That's how I know that this is it for me. That's how I gauge that this thing is real." Her knees buckled and she felt like she was going to fall. It had an even bigger impact on her tonight than it had that night, when she didn't know if he was just whispering pretty words to her or not. Now, she did know – it was not a drill. That man loved her with all of his heart and he was never going to leave her. She almost felt silly for having doubted him, but he didn't give her a chance between that 'almost' and carting her over to the bed.

This was long overdue, and she would never cosign to stop it, ever. Mercedes didn't hear a condom wrapper, but Sam was still exploring her body and kissing everything, touching, tasting, feeling and moaning, as he did. Her hands were even more explorative, since they served as hands and in some fashion, sight for her. She traced his physique, sending chills all over his body with her playful little delicate hands, and when he tasted her, her hands massaged his scalp as her hips rolled against his face, making him unable to stop moaning the entire time he spent indulging himself between her thighs.

Sam had waited so long that he wanted to eagerly and anxiously take her, mount her, hell, breed her, whatever else… But his love was so precious. She should be savored, every inch of her. He would have time later on this weekend and in life to have fast and rowdy with her. Now, he just wanted to worship in their union, sliding himself comfortably into his haven, his home, his heart, he sighed and gathered her closely to himself. They had never been bare before and the way she felt made him think that he might combust – just burst into glorious flames of passion as he sped up and held her tightly.

Mercedes held him just as tightly and used her tongue on every bit of him that she could reach – mostly his chest and shoulders. She bit on him, gently a few times, which always awarded her with a hard thrust and a grunt from him, which always made her smile and moan out a long, breathy "ooooo." Nothing could ruin this moment. Nothing could ever take away from it. Sam found her lips and devoured them in his lust.

"I love you, so much, Baby. I'll never leave you. I'll never let you go," he promised her. "You're my heart, Babe. My life. You're my wife." She was moaning louder, practically singing with each word that he whispered in her ear. When Sam lost all control and shuddered above her body as she ground her hips deeper to milk him for all that he had, he groaned in utter satisfaction, sporadically being hit by waves of aftershock that caused him to involuntarily work his pelvis quickly back and forth until he nearly collapsed. "Oh my God," he said, as he panted for breath and groaned once more, grabbing the sheets next to her head as he slowly pulled himself out.

"That felt so good," Mercedes whispered.

"Yeah? You can have it any time you want it, Babe," he said hoarsely.

"I'm hungry," she said.

"Yeah – we never finished lunch. I'll get it and warm it up for you." He sighed and tried to move. No such luck. He chuckled, "In a moment, I mean. I'll do it as soon as my body stops being high off of you."

"High?" She repeated, laughing.

"You're an insta-whipper," he said. She started laughing. "No, yeah, like… the first time that we did it, I was like ready to slap on a ring and rush you to the chapel. And every time we do it, I'm like lovedrunk. And just now, after having not had it for a while, it was like, BOOM! Addicted all over again! I probably would've stole my momma's TV for a whiff of it." She couldn't stop laughing. "I'm glad this amuses you, future Missus."

"I hope that your gladness prompts you to get up and go get my food!" She said. He laughed and blew strawberries against her neck. "Sam!"

"I'm going. I'm just really happy. I feel like we made our first real breakthrough in months. Now, all we have to do is keep on trucking."

"I'm gonna truck you, if you don't go get my food!" She said and pinched his nipple. Sam hissed.

"So bossy!" He teased and got up. "I'm gonna walk around this lake house butt ass naked."

"Bring your guitar in! You can sing to me while I eat!" She called out.

"You are just so brand new, now that you've gotten a bit o' D!"

"My husband is a celebrity, so I feel like being high maintenance!" She called out. "Also, did you know that he's gonna make me another album of love songs?"

"Yeah, I did hear that, somewhere. I hear that he makes you one every anniversary, birthday and Christmas!"

"It's like a card for us, to be honest. I can't read cards, so I don't ever get them, so CDs are boss, unless I get a specially made Braille card with a textured photo… he's done that before, for Valentine's Day, but he also gave me a gift and a CD to go along with it, because he likes to spoil me and I'm a brat!" She called out.

Sam's voice sounded again, this time in the same room. "You aren't a brat. You're his babydoll. He's supposed to feed you, dress you, get you all the accessories, the house, the car, the pets, whatever else. That's how it works with dolls," he said.

"I didn't really have very many dolls in my life," she said. "Did I ever tell you?"

"No, actually," he said, setting the tray on her lap as she continued.

"Well, when I was little, my mom brought me some doll or another and I put one of the accessories or something in my mouth and choked on it. So, she got me a big doll with a big brush and stuff and I honestly just didn't know what I was supposed to do with it. She tried to show me how to brush its hair, like on Miracle Worker, but she said that I just kept asking her what I was doing and why."

"_Mommy, what is this?"_

"_It's the hairbrush for your dolly, Mercedes. You stroke it through her hair, like this…" Mercedes felt her mother guiding her hands to brush the doll's hair. She couldn't tell what her hands were doing. It felt like busy work for her arms and she didn't understand._

"_Why do I do this?" She wondered._

"_To brush her hair," Mrs. Jones answered._

"_Why do I brush her hair?" She wondered._

"_To make it look pretty," Mrs. Jones told her._

"_Why does her hair need to look pretty when I can't see it and I don't really know what pretty is?" She asked._

"_Because you said that you want to be like the other girls and the other girls play with dolls," Mrs. Jones said. Mercedes sighed. "Here, I'll show you how to make a ponytail,"_

"I pretty much learned how to do my own hair from playing with that one doll. It was almost like an assignment. My mom would show me to comb her hair, to braid it, to put it into a ponytail, or whatever and she would ask me to do it myself, at a later time. As I got older, I became more interested in reading. I learned Braille and when I came across words that were unfamiliar I would ask what they were and if I could touch one. _'What's a starfish? Can I touch it? What's a tutu? Can I touch it?' _ And that was how I got to start having an idea of what things were. I would walk through the store with Mom and she would hand me something and tell me what it was, what it was shaped like, what it was made out of, if it was breakable or not. I think that's why I went into the antique business when I came into my money… It felt like home, or the closest thing to it that I had ever had. The product that I didn't know, I was able to learn fairly quickly. I did that, even though I loved to sing and when I was little, I wanted to be a singer. My mom told me that there were some great singers and musicians who were blind and that she was sure that if I worked at it, I could be one of the greats."

Sam stroked her thigh and looked at her lovingly as she spoke about her biological mother. "Next year makes her fifteenth memorial."

"Oh, Baby…" Sam said and gave her a hug.

"I think that I'll visit her grave…" She frowned and said, "I haven't since we first got out of the institution. Emma used to take me then I freaked out and decided that I couldn't keep doing it to myself. I haven't gone since I was 16."

"I'll take you at any time. I'd like for you to present me to your mom," Sam said. It had only just occurred to him that he had never been to Mrs. Jones' grave, but then again, she didn't speak too much on her old family.

"We can go visit Mary, too," Mercedes said. Sam frowned and took a deep breath. "Like, I feel like I still need some closure on some things with her, too."

"Like what?" He asked.

She finally started eating the plate that she sent him after as she said, "Like… She died hating me for nothing and I still feel like I had something to prove to her. I just want to be able to go there and honestly leave a token in her memory… and I think that you need to go visit her too. Maybe, get some things off of your mind that you've held onto since she passed." Sam rested his head on her legs and sighed. He didn't want to do that, at all. "If you don't want to, I understand. Stacie might be willing to take me."

"No. It wouldn't be right to have Stacie bring you there," he said. "We can do it. I just don't really know what you expect out of it."

"I don't either, but I'm hoping that it couldn't hurt," Mercedes said.

Jake was freezing by the time that he got home from the lake. He never saw Sam come back to the lake house, but maybe he could go the next day? Maybe he could get Cheri to come out with him. Maybe, if he could show her that there was something off about Sam Evans, she might be more open to helping him find out the whole truth about the allegations suggested against his brother. He glared out into space. Fucking Sam Evans!

He was so elusive and evasive about things. _Jake once watched an interview in which Sam was asked flat out, "Did Noah Puckerman ever say to you or to anyone that you know of, personally that he killed Jesse St. James?" _

_Sam gave a slightly crooked smile and said, "Had Puckerman told me that, we might've actually been friends. It's no secret that I no longer cared for Jesse St. James at the time of his death and I even threatened him that night – there are witnesses and I can't deny it. What I can say is that if Noah Puckerman knew anything about Jesse St. James' death – I would've been the last person on earth that he talked to about it, despite that."_

"_Did you hate Noah Puckerman?" The interviewer asked._

"_There was bad blood between us. We were both in love with the same woman, but I wouldn't have wished anything like what happened to him on the guy. He had a family, friends, people who loved him dearly and I saw a lot of pain in all of my friends when he was gone." Sam's eyes dampened._

"_Do you think that Noah Puckerman killed Jesse St. James?" The interviewer asked._

"_I don't think that Puckerman had that in him. I mean, the rumor is that Puck and Mrs. St. James were friends or lovers or something and the speculation is that he might have killed Jesse because Jesse was abusing her, but Puckerman came across to me as the type to have more bark than bite. If you want to know the truth – I'd make a much better suspect for the crime; but alas, I was doing something much more fulfilling that night than putting more blood on my conscious."_

"_But, isn't it true that you suggested that he may have killed Jesse St. James?"_

"_I simply brought attention to the speculations that he could be a possible suspect, considering his emotional ties to the woman who survived the attack that night with maybe a few scratches and the fact that he would fit the culprit's height and size just as easily as I do," Sam said.  
"Basically, I was merely pointing out that I wasn't the only person who may have had the mind to get rid of Jesse. That observation was merely to present grounds for reasonable doubt. Unfortunately, Puck's dead. He doesn't get to tell his side of the story, if there even is one. I mean, I still think that white supremacists killed him, so for all I know, Jesse stepped a toe out of line somewhere and they killed him, too. All I can do is speculate," Sam said with a little chuckle. A fucking chuckle!_

Jake seethed, just thinking about it! How dare he let out hearty little laughs when talking about a dead person's good name! Jake heard a sound behind him and turned, ready to attack. "Whoa, there!" His dad. Great.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He asked.

"Your mom needed something. I was just leaving," he said.

"That's certainly surprising!" Jake said and rolled his eyes.

"Your mom said that you were dating a girl. Why aren't you out, enjoying your Friday night, with her?" Mr. Puckerman asked.

"First off – my mom talking to you about anything is just bizarre. Second, mom knows that I'm not dating anyone and the one girl that mom knows of that I know is spending most of her night being productive. I know that's a big word and one that you never hear representing yourself. Aren't _you _also dating a girl? I mean, aren't you always?" Mr. Puckerman winked at his son and moved around him to leave. "So, your ex-wife is wondering if you're ever going to visit your son's grave." Mr. Puckerman stopped and turned around to look at Jake.

"You do realize that I didn't go see that screw up when he was alive, right? Why the hell would I go visit his murderous, drunken grave?"

"Such an asshole. He didn't get that way from natural selection, you know. You had a good deal to do with some of his bad decisions… and it's never been proven that he killed anybody!" Jake fussed.

"I'm sure that you have an excellent argument. But, you said it yourself – I've got a lady friend to tend to tonight and no time for this from you, Son. Kiss your mom goodnight, for me."

"Kiss my ass, for me," Jake said and stormed off.

"Just like him," he heard his father mutter on the way out of the door, but he continued towards his mother's room to see her putting her waitress uniform on.

"Mom?" He called.

She looked up at him and her face brightened when she saw him, "Jake! I thought you'd be out. Why don't you find something to do on a Friday night, Kid. You're too great a person and too cute to be alone and inside every weekend. What's Cheri up to?"

"Practice," he said.

"Has she been practicing so much the last few weeks? It feels like it's been a long time since she called or came by or anything. I hope you two didn't have a falling out?" She asked.

"Yeah, we don't really talk, now," he said.

"I hope that it doesn't have to do with Noah Puckerman," his mother said, disappointed.

"He was my brother, Mom. Even if I hate that douchebag that just left. In speaking of which, what the hell, Mom?" he asked.

"Hey! Who do you think you're talking to with that language, Kid?" She asked. He sighed and shook his head. "I know that you don't like him, but he is your father and sometimes, he is needed for things." Jake scoffed. "You'll understand it all, soon enough; if you aren't starting to know, already. What about Cheri? There are things that you don't like about her, but I'm sure that you think about her fondly, still."

"The difference is that Cheri isn't the type to leave her family and abandon kids. He won't even go to Noah's grave," Jake said.

"And he doesn't have to," she answered. "Your father was never one for sappy emotions and heartfelt expressions. I'm sure that Noah knew that. He spent more time around him than either of us have. I don't Noah would have expected him to visit."

"He wouldn't have expected me, either," Jake said.

"Yeah, well if he's looking upon you, I'm sure it's a pleasant surprise. His dad shows up and he might roll over in his grave." She grabbed her purse and left him some cash. "You should try to do something fun and just for you, this weekend."

He refused to take it. She had probably gotten it from that bastard that fathered him and if she did – who the hell knew what she did to get it. "Keep your money, Mom. You know that I have a part time gig and as a matter of fact, I plan on spending some time at the lake this weekend."

"Kinda cold for that, don't you think?" She asked.

"Entirely too much, but I'll build a campfire and stuff and only be out there during the day," he said.

"Cheri coming along?"

"No, Mom. Okay? That's a finished story," he said.

"Well, make sure that you have condoms. Lord KNOWS we don't need another mouth to feed around here." She kissed him on the cheek and he walked her to her car, always worried that something might happen in that short distance. After she was gone, he went back inside and debate for a long time before shooting Cheri a text. _**Hey. Mom asked about you… I was wondering if I can see you tomorrow. Hit me back.. please. And, I'm sorry. I was wrong to act like I did. **_

Cheerio didn't hear her phone buzzing in her bag. It was very late and when Terri locked up the gym, the girls all went to their vehicles and Cheerio limped to Dwight's truck wincing in pain. She probably needed to get her knee looked at, soon. She had been told that she would never again be able to do the things that she used to do, after her injury and lately, Terri had been pushing her pretty hard and constantly reminding her that if she could not do this that she needed to quit. But, Cheri needed the squad. It was virtually the only thing that she still did that she actually loved. Cowboy's cookies would have to wait. She needed to crash, soon.

Sam cleaned up the kitchen while she got some rest. Poor thing. He had to have her several more times before he even thought to leave the room again and each time felt even better than the last, aside from the growing soreness and the increasing exhaust. She was down for a while, and he knew it. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about how this day had gone.

_ Early Friday, they got up and made their way to Pieces of Mercy, where mostly everyone else was gathered to set up the weekend after Halloween sidewalk sale. Cheri and Cowboy rode with Stacie and Dwight met them there. That kid Jake arrived at the same time that Unique, Lauren and Santana came, in order to help them set up and Becky showed up after Sam and Mercedes did. They all were gathering up everything and taking it outside so that Becky, Santana and Lauren could set things up when Mercedes left with Tina and Quinn to have breakfast and finalize the edible arrangements order for the wedding._

_ Sam sensed a lot of tension between people, but he couldn't tell if he was imagining it, or not. Even Lauren didn't play around with him, like she used to an he felt as isolated as he had when he first met everyone, if not worse… because at least at that time, Lauren had his back. He wasn't sure how she felt about him these days, but there was definitely distance between them. Sam knew it was problem him. People do change. Everyone does, but he was the only one whose change seemed to not fit with everyone else's. Maybe that was part of his and Mercedes' problems? They were changing from a distance. He was becoming an outsider, again._

_ He could hardly wait to get her away for bit, just like in the beginning of their relationship, so they could have time to grow and change together, again. It was a longshot to presume that a trip away might fix things, but hopefully, they couldn't hurt._

_ He packed what they needed, loaded his truck and had Dwight ride with him to the rental place, so that he could switch vehicles. That worked out perfectly for Dwight, as Cheerio needed his truck this weekend for a "cheer workshop." He got back on the road and went to pick Mercedes up and drop her dogs off at the house, along with the extensive list of dog-sitting instructions for them. He called Marley to tell her of the plans and give her the contact information, and she insisted that bring her the information, before she set off to the lake… He told her that he was going to be at the lake as well and that he would drop the information of to her. Sam had come to learn his place around the lake pretty well and when she told him the place she was renting, he knew right away which one she meant. He promised to bring it by and she asked him to include a map from her lake house to theirs, just in case._

_ He dropped Mercedes off at their lake house and she went to wash up and take a nap. While she did all of that, he went to visit Marley. When he got there, he had to use her bathroom and he went in to do that while she went out to sit on her porch, helping herself to what she said was her "third and final" glass of wine. He came out and she bid him farewell, asking him if she needed to come to the lake house in the morning to prepare breakfast or anything. "No. Babydoll said you should have this weekend off. I just think that as the personal assistant that you should know where we are, right now. Enjoy your weekend, Hun and hopefully we won't see you until Monday."_

"_Hopefully," she said._

_ He got back to the lake house and Mercedes was__ in the bathroom with the door still closed, so he knocked and called out, "Babydoll?"_

"_Sam!" She said, "Thank goodness! I hurt my foot!" He flung the door open and saw blood on the floor and her seated on the toilet, dry with a damp towel wrapped around her body. "I don't know where the peroxide is or alcohol or bactine, or whatever..." Sam found the culprit - a straight edge razor blade on the floor around drops of blood._

"_I guess you stepped on your razor," he said, aggravated._

"_Sam..."_

_He chuckled humorlessly in disbelief. "Let me see your forearms," he told her._

"_I promise; I wasn't going to do anything like that. I have, recently, yes - but I promise, it must have fallen out of my bag or something and I knocked it down, dropped it, something and accidentally stepped on it..." She said. She heard him moving and felt him jerk her arms towards himself. He saw the cuts. "This happened before you got back..." He flung her arms out of his hold and didn't respond. "Sam?" She felt him messing over her foot, to tend to it for her, but he refused to say anything. She could feel his anger. He hated when she hurt herself on purpose. _

_Over the past couple of years, she honestly had not done it much, but he told her repeatedly that if she ever felt like she needed to, to call him instead and give him a chance to convince her not to... She had not done so. She'd simply done... this. "Sam?" She called out, moving her foot away from his hold to try to get him to talk, but that only angered him and he snatched her foot back to himself and she hissed in pain and winced._

"_Sorry," he said, but nothing afterwards as he finished securing the injury. It was well over an hour and a half before she found the courage to speak again, and by that time, he had done everything in his power to simply try not to be angry at her and thus judge her for having hurt herself. The scars were old enough that he knew she was telling the truth about them being made before he returned, but… It hurt him. It never wouldn't hurt him for her to do something like that._

He sang her "I Won't Give Up," by Jason Mraz, after she finished her food. It was pretty much his song for her, at this moment. He would never give up on her, on them, their love, any of it. And after she tried to rip his heart to shreds with that Christina Aguilera song, he owed her some heartfelt lyrics, even if they weren't ones he'd written, himself. She loved that song, too. She was singing along with him and making the song even better than the original with her heaven sent gift. But, she was completely silent when he sang Hunter Hayes' country song, Wanted to her. "You know I'd fall apart without you. I don't know how you do what you do. 'Cause everything that don't make sense about me makes sense when I'm with you…" She was silent and listening to the words, absorbing them.

"Like everything that's green, girl, I need you, but it's more than one and one makes two. Put aside the math and the logic of it. You gotta know you're wanted too. 'Cause I wanna wrap you up, Wanna kiss your lips, I wanna make you feel wanted. And I wanna call you mine; Wanna hold your hand forever, and never let you forget it. Yeah, I, I wanna make you feel wanted…" She certainly seemed to feel wanted after that song. She was all over him, which he of course, didn't mind and would never complain about. Sam exploded inside of her, repeatedly.

Even as he cleaned up the kitchen, he thought about that nice little sploosh sound that he made when he plunged inside of her and how well it fit together with the instant bliss of her hot, wet flesh wrapped around him, tightly. He moaned and grabbed hold of the kitchen counter for support as he fought off the churning inside of him. Then, he thought of the way it looked when he pushed himself into those slick folds and thrust himself deeper, shallower, harder, softer, faster, slower, inside and out. He moaned and took a deep breath.

Mercedes awoke in the middle of the night, jumping up and feeling around on the bed beside her. She touched Sam's arm, his chest, neck and face. It was him. He was there. She cuddle closely to him and curled herself up beneath his arm, causing him, even in his sleeping state to wrap her in an embrace. She started humming that song, Wanted, to herself, deciding that it was her new favorite song and knowing that Sam better put it on the next CD that he made for her. Her foot was stinging. She probably needed it redressed. It had hurt when she got out of the shower and stepped on the thing. She hissed, and immediately sat down on the toilet to see what had happened. When she reached for the object in her foot, she slit her thumb, slightly and dropped it. At that point, she didn't know where it went and she certainly didn't want to get up and possibly land on it, again. Better yet, she didn't want to track blood that she knew she was spilling in this rental place. So, she waited for Sam.

She knew that he would be upset, but this was a new, unfamiliar place and she didn't know where anything was. This must have been God plotting on her to exploit her dirty secrets. She had carried that razor with her all over the country, on many, many trips and it generally remained in its special, hidden, go-to spot… but the one time she's in a place where she hasn't learned the layout to know where to find anything, she mysteriously loses track of it and ends up with an injury? I see you, God. He had to find out, some time. It happened weeks ago, but she had hidden it from him and fortunately, he hadn't noticed any new marks on her arms (until after seeing the blade, that is).

Newer marks were always more prominent. All of the older ones were darker than her normal skin tone, but not as dark as the newer ones. Maybe she wanted him to notice, though. Maybe it made her feel good to know that it still upset him if she hurt. Some part of her knew that, but confirmation was key material. He had gone through her bags – she noticed. Probably searching for other razors to get rid of them. He didn't know exactly where to check, though. She had others. She didn't plan on using them! But, sometimes, just to know that they were there, in case she needed them was enough. Sometimes, she simply pulled one out and held it in her hands, caressed it a little, knowing it would give her just the portion of emotion she needed to cart her through her current trip… She wouldn't do it again. Sam was too important to her and this Friday had been her bill of notice to stop sabotaging things.

"_Sabotaging things is what we do – people like you and me," Puck once told her. "That's exactly why we're so great together."_

"_No, it's exactly why we can't ever be great together," she corrected him._

_He chuckled, "But, we're better together than either of us will ever be with anyone else… What kind of people do you think will just cater to us constantly sabotaging things that they're involved in? Nobody in their right mind would," he told her. "Be honest, you keep me around to help you sabotage things with all of these guys that you know will eventually leave you. Feels better if you get to blame it on me. Feels better if you aren't the reason that they left. I don't mind doing that. I hate seeing you with anybody else. But, I'd like you to admit that you don't want to be happy with anybody else, either."_

"_I want to be happy, Puck. I want to be happy with somebody who loves me and treats me right, without messing it up and pushing them away… I… just don't know how!" She argued._

"_Which is why you'll never be happy with anybody but me," he said and took her into a hug. She cried, but she believed him. She believed it, every time._

Sam awoke to the shaking of Mercedes curled up in his side and he knew that she was crying. "Babydoll?"

"I love you, Sam," she whispered.

"I love you too," he told her, rubbing her for extra comfort.

"I'll be happy with you. I'll do it without messing it up and pushing you away," she said.

"You aren't messing it up, Baby. We're in this together. I know that things get really hard for you. You've been through more abuse than anyone ever had the mind and heart to realize. I lose my patience sometimes, but I'm not ever leaving you." He squeezed her and kissed the top of her head. "Whatever is going through your mind, whatever is scaring you right now, continue to know that I love you and I want you and I_ need_ you. I couldn't leave you if I thought it was best for me. I couldn't leave you if my life depended on it."

"How long have we been on this mini vacation?" She asked.

"One night," he said.

"I want every night to end with me next to you, in your arms, being held and told that you love me… warding off all of the demons and ghosts haunting my memories and my spirit," she said.

"I am willing to do anything that you want of me, Mercedes. Anything." He kissed her on the shoulder and rubbed his cheek gently against her skin. He tapped into his memory for one of the songs on one of her various inspirational CDs (he had gone through and learned several songs, in case he ever needed them for her sake… being in love with somebody like her might call for it; DID call for it – but he didn't love her any less.) "What do you do when you've done all you can and it seems like it's never enough? And what do you say when your friends turn away and you're all alone?" She started singing along with him and by the end of the song… she was asleep again. Sam stroked her hair. He was never letting this happen to them again. Tomorrow, he was going to make her entire year in just a day! He smiled to himself. This weekend was going to bring that adorable woman who helped him pull his life together back. He was going to show her things, remind her of things. He smiled to himself and held her tightly, going back to sleep, himself. He needed his rest for the next day.


End file.
